Harry Potter and the Elder Race
by sybill tres-looney
Summary: In 1995, the Wizarding World was shocked to witness a dead Cedric Diggory appear on Hogwarts ground bearing the Triwizard Cup. Harry, on the other hand, has not been found since he entered the maze. Where is he? HP as the lost prince of the High Elves.H/G
1. Prologue

Harry Potter and the Elder Race

Sibyll Tres_looney

At some point in the time of the unknowable past, amidst the chaos of the birthing of a million suns, a tiny rip of imbalance, an imperfection - dark and menacing - came into being. In the beginning, it was just a minutiae - negligible in the greater scheme of things - as the universe struggled to bring light and order and, ultimately, life into existence. And so this thing, which was nothing more than a tiny pinprick of darkness, rode the great emptiness of space and time, brooding its irrelevancy, its inconsequentiality, until time itself and the destruction and ruin of dying worlds, fed its festering being 'til it grew, slowly, and became... _aware_.

For thousands of millennia it prowled the vast emptiness of the universe, desiring purpose for its being in destruction. And so it sought that which allowed it scope, glorying in the obliteration of worlds it came upon, 'til it reached a flourishing world out upon the edges of a galaxy, accompanying the rain of deadly meteorites that annihilated the mightiest living creatures of that time (which one day future sentient beings would call the Dinosaurs), a destruction that allowed the emergence of a new type of beings – the Mammals.

For hundreds upon hundred-thousands of years it witnessed the flourishing of life, and having without substance itself, begrudged the life that seemed to swarm all around it, moving through it but itself never becoming a part of such living vibrancy. But it bided its time and waited till it could wreak the most havoc and destruction.

Millennia of time later, a race of beings arrived upon the earth. They were the eldest, the firstborn of all humanoid races, the first in the entire universe. Through the refinement of time and generations they had attained the height of evolution, closest to the One, the Creator. Thus were they called the Elder or the Eternal race, though later, humans of this planet would call them the Elven, 'the White Ones' in the Olden Tongue. To them was given the task of looking after this paradise, this oasis of life in the vast emptiness of space, endowed as they were with the gift of nurturing and protecting life, of ensuring that life - so rare and precious in this alone universe - abideths. They had travelled across vast distances of space and time to be the guardians of this planet, and its most precious inhabitant - man.

~o~

30 October 1979

Modern Era, Time of Man

Kingdom of the Elder Race

The Emerald Glade, somewhere in the Scottish Highlands

If heaven could be found anywhere here on earth, it would be here, in this hidden valley called Imraudden in the Ancient Tongue, where no frost or bitter wind or overcast sky could mar the beauty nestled in its protected glade. At the center of the glade stood a mighty structure, its very walls seemed to glow from a light within, very like the High Elves who lived in this forest. The walls and towers of the structure had rounded edges, but topped with serrated spires and pinnacles, giving off the impression not unlike that of a sheathed sword.

On the balcony on the second floor of the main palace, stood the Elf King, Lord Eldridge - tall, white-haired, and fair of faces as was usual of his kind, though unusual was the expression of fear that drew his face into sharp, angular panes.

"You called, my Lord?" a soft, lilting voice called from behind him as the Elf-Queen approached.

The High King did not look back but continued to stare far off in the distance. The Queen patiently waited as she stood slightly behind him, her ethereally beautiful face equally marred with fear and worry. At length, the Elf King spoke, his voice gravely low.

"You do feel it, don't you, _Bereth-nin_? The darkness… the malaise…."

The queen bent her head down and laid a gentle hand on her protuberant belly, emergent with life. "Yes. We both feel it," she said quietly.

"The evil has grown. It was the same Dark Shadow that destroyed our people in the Black Forest *half an age ago. Without our people's protection, the lands abroad were consumed by the blackest of all evil. Entire generations of peoples and races were lost to the last war in the Mortal World. It was only by our protection that the Shadow was not able to lay its evil upon these lands and this country had not been overrun. Otherwise, the Magicless folks of this land and from across the seas would not have the fasthold it needed from which to launch a counteroffense against the invaders and we would be living in a vastly different world, a direr place. And now, the same shadow is felt abroad once again. The same Evil Malaise." The Elf-King turned his face towards the queen. "Do you not feel it? It is growing stronger." He drew a deep breath and turned his gaze back towards the horizon, where the sun was sinking behind a deeply darkening sky. "Already our half-kinds, the witching folk, as well as the mundane people, are starting to suffer from its malevolent influence."

"Then we must make preparations to fight it, _hîr__ nín_." The Queen fingered the necklace on her chest. "We must be ready to try and stay this evil, to intervene once again if we have to, and to save as many lives of Mortal men as we could."

The King took a deep breath and turned back to the queen. He dropped his gaze down to her chest, where a Star-glass containing The Star of Eärendil lay nestled. It was a miniature version of the one the Lady Galadriel had given the half-ling who saved Middle-earth in the ancient days. A great sadness overcame his face. "We are, my Queen. There is only one way to fight this evil, and that is by The Star of Eärendil, the light of our people. Because the Shadow has no physical form, it cannot be killed by sword or by any other physical means. But it cannot abide light or absolute good either. We expect it to attack soon, for we are the only thing that stands in its way between its complete domination of this world and the survival of Mortal men. Therefore, you must leave these shores at once. You must leave for the safety of the Eternal Forest in Nóregr up north. It is no longer safe here for you and our child…our son."

The queen held her husband's gaze for a few seconds, and then looked down once again at her tumescent belly, caressing it.

"Yes. Our child is a male. I know it in my heart," she said, smiling sadly as a single tear rolled down her face. Then she looked back up to her husband. "But will it be safe for us to leave now? Is it not too late? I have heard the news that, even as we now speak, the Black Shadow has now infected the Mortal World. I look to the lands of the Mortals, and their skies are tainted with blood."

"Yes. The Dark Shadow has indeed spawned evil in the Mortal Lands. The more reason you must leave at once." The Elven King held his wife's hands in his. "You have to leave my queen," he said pleadingly. "You carry in you the future of our kind, the grace of our kind. Do you not remember the prophecy made about the next royal child to be born in my house? _The__ One __with __the__ power __to__ vanquish __the __Dark__ Shadow__…__And __he__ shall__ have __power__ greater__ than __any __Elven-born__…__._And I have _Seen_ him, our son," the Elf-King said quietly, fixing his gaze just above the Queen's head as if seeing something far off in the distance.

"You have?" the Queen's face brightened with pleasure. She herself had not the gift of Sight. That her husband had seen the face of their unborn had brought happiness in her heart even in these darkening times. "I wish I could see him as well," she said, her voice wistful.

But the Elf-King merely looked back at her with sadness in his eyes. He _had_ Seen the child. But he looked nothing like him or his wife. The child looked Mortal with black hair sticking up the back and slightly ruined eyes, but there, very clearly reflected in the child's eyes, were the very green of Imraudden, his rightful birthplace. Thus, he knew in his heart that the child was Elven, his son, the future prince. Therefore, it could only mean one thing. The child would leave these lands. How or why, he did not know. Then he looked away out into the clouds, as if trying to decipher meanings in its shapeless forms. "He would have great power," he murmured, "greater than any Elven-born on this planet." He shook his head, smiling ruefully, "Even now, I feel it. It would be something to behold the moment he comes by his full power at the right time."

The Queen touched him on his arm. "Don't worry, _hîr __nín_," the Queen said soothingly. "_I__ Dor_ will look after us. This Evil, too, shall pass."

The King turned back to her.

"But you must leave, my Queen. You know that don't you?"

"Yes. But will you not come with me? Where you are will be safest for me and our child."

"Yes, that's true. But I must stay here with our people. For when the Shadow attacks, as I expect it will, I am the only one strong enough to wield the power of the Star of Eärendil. But I promise you, _Bereth-nin_, after all this is over, I shall be reunited with you soon as ever I can."

Tears started to flow in earnest now down the fair Queen's face. She wrapped both her arms around her belly, wanting to protect the child.

"I fear it, my Lord," she said, her voice shaking.

"I know. But we have withstood its evil once before. I have no doubt that we will prevail once again."

The Elf-King and the Queen stared at each other's eyes. No more words were needed. No words that they could say to alleviate the pain of parting, or allay the fear of a future that might never come, for themselves and for the world beyond. The Queen stepped nearer towards the King, letting the King enfold her in his arms. And over beyond the horizon, the sun sank steadily deeper and deeper into the maw of endless black space.

Early the next morning, the Elven hosts departed for Norway – Nóregr in the Ancient Tongue - where the fjords had hidden the Eternal Forest, home of their Northern kindred, for thousands of years from Mortal eyes. The white coach edged with golden filigrees and carrying the pregnant Queen was pulled by five flying white horses, the Annwynian horses shining with a light of their own very like their Elven masters. The Elven train left with many a host of Elven warriors to accompany the Queen, rushing to meet almost headlong the wakening sun, with its fiery fingers already spreading across the eastern skies. Though it was not given to the Elder race to fight in times of war, the memory of conflicts long past of their ancestors during their Mortal years in the early days of their people were buried deep in their memories, memories that their highly advanced brains could recall at once, summoning their muscles into instantaneous action were it needed.

With unmitigated speed, the Elven hosts flew across the sky. It was as they were crossing the North sea that the Head Elf halted, sensing the fell change in the atmosphere, letting the others fly ahead of him. One of the Elven Queen's Royal Guards, noticing, flew ahead to ride abreast of him.

"_Man__sa_? _Trastad?_" he said to the Head Elf. "_Man __pulich __cened_?"

The Head Elf motioned towards the Southern skies, over Scotland. Even the flying horses underneath them were clearly spooked, rearing up their heads, their necks and muscles stiffening, something that did not always happen with Elven horses.

"_Tiro!_ _Nad __no __ennas!_ _Nad __anglennol_!" he said.

Over the Scottish lands they had just left, a pall of black shadow was slowly spreading across the morning skies, creeping yet inescapable. In a few minutes, the dark Shadow would reach them, and they would be completely overcome. Unbeknownst to the Elven hosts, Imraudden had been attacked a few moments after they had left the protected glade but the power of the Eärendil Star was too strong for it. Thwarted, the Dark Shadow hurried after the Queen's Party, drawn by the power of the unborn prince, cloaked as it were inside his placental cocoon.

The Head Elf and the Queen's Guard exchanged fearful glances. Then the Royal Guard pulled hard at the rein of his steed, yanking him to hurry meet the Queen's retinue, screaming _Drego!__ Drego!,_ fear rending his voice hoarse.

The Head Elf himself hollered _"__Ribo!_ Fly! Fly!" towards the Elven hosts with undisguised fear, not for himself, no, nor his brethren, but for the Queen and the unborn prince. He waited until the Queen's main party reached him and he too joined the retinue, positioning himself closer to the Queen's carriage, determined to protect her with the last breath of his life.

Inside the carriage, the Queen need not be told of what had happened for she and her unborn child had felt, too, the approaching Evil. The Queen bent her head low, hugging her swollen belly tightly, terror beating at her heart. Though she carried with her the Star of Eärendil, the gathered light was in even smaller amount than the Star-light the Lady Galadriel gave the half-ling Frodo - it would be no match against the approaching Shadow. And even if she had the means to wield its power, to do so would surely kill her and her unborn child. There was no hope for her and her Elven companions. But perhaps she could still save her child. There was only one way.

She bent her head down, and whispered to the child inside.

Farewell, my child,

By the grace of God that was given me

I send you to the Mortal world

I send you with all the power

and grace of our people

Be their light and their armour

And their sword in times of need

Carry with you the light of Eärendil

The Star of our People

Carry with you the grace of God

the King's, thy Father's, love

and for always, mine, forever - my love

Go to the Mortal World, my Son

Go to the World

She then began a song of prayer, a song of her people, calling on and drawing to its full strength the magic of the Star of Eärendil.

_Uich__ gwennen __na__'wanath __ah__ na__ dhín.__  
An __uich__ gwennen__ na__ ringyrn__ ambar __hen.  
Boe __naid__ bain__ gwannathar,  
Boe __cuil__ ban__ firitha._  
_Boe__ naer__ gwannathach_

{You are not bound to loss and silence.  
For you are not bound to the circles of this world.  
All things must pass away,  
All life is doomed to fade…  
Sorrowing you must go, (and yet you are not without hope.)}

She then turned her face upwards to heaven, and claimed the grace of her faith, uttering a prayer she believed with all her heart would be granted by the One God, the Creator.

_Ae Adar nín, nallon sí na i veth,_

_Sí di-nguruthos_

_Lasto beth lammen!_

_Anno dulu enni, le iallon!_

_Lle naa erulye, i Dor na er_

_Beriad i chên nîn_

_Aníron i e broniatha_

_Anno vellas lín enin faer hen_

_Anno hon e guil_

_Caro den i innas lin_

{Our Father, I cry here at the end

Here in the shadow of death

Listen to the word of my tongue

Help me! I beg of you!

You are God, the Lord alone

Protect my child

I wish that he endures

May you give your strength to this spirit

Give him the gift of life

Make it thy will}

She then turned her face back towards her belly, the Eärendil Star now glowing, though its light was still concentrated inside its glass container. She again whispered to her child, uttering a final farewell, her words hurrying one after the other as she felt the Dark Shadow gaining distance over them, the fearful shouts of her people crashing in her ears like the cawing cries of carrion birds, the terror in their voices reverberating a pummeling beat in her very heart. In a few minutes the Dark Shadow would be completely upon them, and as she said her goodbye to her unborn child, she began to bind its soul with the power of the light of Eärendil, using her very life as the seed of the magic spell.

_Ion nín, cuio vae_

_Na i ahië ya meril cenë Ambaressë._

_No i Dor na le_

_Ú-firo i laiss e-guil lîn_

_Guren nallatha nalú achenin le_

_Harthon cened le vi Menel_

_Istathan nîf-lin cened_

_Le melithon anuir_

_Annin cuil nín lé!_

_Bado na Fireb amar!_

{My son, live well

Be the change you wish to see in the world

May the Lord be with you

May the leaves of your life not die

My heart shall weep until I see thee again

I hope to see you in heaven

There, I will know your face

I will love you forever

I give my life to thee!

Go to the Mortal world!}

And the Star of Eärendil began to steadily glow with unadulterated white light, drawing unbound power from the unborn prince, from the Queen's self-sacrifice, and the absolute grace of the One God. Steady on and on the light grew, until the light became so bright it lit the world for miles around, a million times brighter than the light of the galaxy's biggest star. And, in a flash, as the soul of the Queen's unborn son fused with the light of Eärendil, the resulting light swallowed the Evil Malaise, annihilating it once and for all.

A thousand miles away, in a village in Southwestern England, a black-haired, young man with hair sticking up the back and his equally young, red-headed wife welcomed the new day by reaffirming with their bodies the love they both shared in their hearts and in their minds. And, at the peak of their passion, their love was unified, cohering into a new life. There in that moment a child was formed, theirs in the flesh, but one with a unique soul - the Lost Son of the Elder Race.

~o~

Glossary:

*half an age – half a century

_Bereth-nin__ – _my Queen

_hîr__ nín_– my Lord

_I__ Dor__ – _The Lord

_Man__sa_? _Trastad?__ – _What is it? Is there trouble?

_Man__ pulich__ cened?__ – _What can you see?

_Tiro!_ _Nad__ no__ ennas!_ _Nad__ anglennol_! – Look! Something's out there! Something's coming!

_Drego!__ – _Flee!


	2. Chapter 1

Harry Potter and the Elder Race

Chapter 01

A/N: (1st off, sorry for the long A/N, will try not to do it again)

Lija is right, ch 1 should've been the prologue but it didn't even occur to me; relabeling it now.

sorry 4 d delay. Was planning to write 1 book equivalent, about 36 chapters long but looks like it's going to be 3 books 4 who knows how many chapters? And frankly, I don't know enough English to be able to write that much.

Was originally planning to upload 5 chapters at once, but I find editing really hard. Will upload the rest in next 2 weeks, promise.

this part was esp difficult to write, trying to think through whether Dumbledore knowingly allowed Voldemort to kidnap Harry. I can't imagine a parent/parent-figure who supposedly loves his charge would willingly let a murderer kidnap the child, no matter how much he thinks it necessary. If ur a parent, u'll know exactly what I mean. But I wanted to keep the Dumbledore-Harry relationship as it was in the books. Still, so hard to keep Dumbly the good guy.

Appreciate all reviews. They do tell me to continue writing. But as much as possible I try to avoid putting A/Ns to keep the chapter clean. Used to make ebooks out of fanfics (makes it easier to read) and make them so they would look exactly like a book. I would even put in H/G fanart/pics I _stole_ – ehrm, copied – online :).

k. im gonna shut up now. ;D

"_Stand aside! I will kill him! He is mine!" shrieked Voldemort. Harry's hand had closed on Cedric's wrist; one tombstone stood between him and Voldemort, but Cedric was too heavy to carry, and the cup was out of reach — Voldemort's red eyes flamed in the darkness. Harry saw his mouth curl into a smile, saw him raise his wand._

"_Accio!" Harry yelled, pointing his wand at the Triwizard Cup. It flew into the air and soared toward him. Harry caught it by the handle —"_

— Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

~o~

_"Avada Kedavra!"_

Harry heard Voldemort scream the Killing Curse just as he felt the tug behind his navel that meant the Portkey was bringing him back to Hogwarts. But at the same moment he had moved his arm in front of him in a futile attempt to shield himself from the Killing Curse and felt the curse connect to the Triwizard Cup instead of him. Then, almost at once, he felt the cup shake and vibrate so violently that Harry had a hard time holding on to the Cup. Harry did not know what was happening. The spell of the Killing Curse must have affected the magic of the Portkey Spell. Harry felt like he was being wrenched apart from the Portkey, his hands slipping their hold from it. It was as if the Portkey was pulling him one way while his own body was being pulled by another, more powerful, force in a completely opposite direction. If he lost his hold on the Triwizard cup, he did not know where he would land or if he would return back to Voldemort and his Death Eaters.

Harry did not know for how long he could hold on. In the back of his mind was his promise to a dead man – to Cedric's ghost? — that he would return his body to his parents. He didn't want to fail. And neither did he want to leave the people he cared about back in Hogwarts without a clue as to what had happened to himself and Cedric. Dumbledore had got to know. Perhaps Dumbledore would realize that the Triwizard cup had been turned into a Portkey. If Harry could not save himself, perhaps it was still possible to return Cedric's body back to his parents. With that thought in mind, Harry wrenched his two hands together to bring the Triwizard cup and Cedric's body in contact, struggling to hook Cedric's arm through the handle of the cup. But soon he felt his grip slipping; he could not hold on for much longer…until...

~o~

Dumbledore stood alert at the entrance to the Healing tent where Viktor Krum had been brought, watching apprehensively for the reappearance of the remaining Triwizard champions. Beside him, Cornelius Fudge started clacking like a wet hen.

"I would never have believed it! Who would have thought, eh?" the Minister said, shifting a glance at Dumbledore. "Krum! Who knew that he was capable of doing such a thing? But then again, he is, after all, from Durmstrang."

Dumbledore was jerked into speaking from his silent vigil, though his gaze never left the opening of the maze. "Cornelius, you ought to know better than to make sweeping judgments," he said, looking at Fudge askance. "We still do not know what really happened inside the maze. We'd have to wait for the other champions to return."

"Aw, Dumbledore, what more proof do you want? His wand says it all! And the Delacour girl has herself attested to the fact." Fudge swept his gaze around the field as if looking for someone, twirling his bowler hat in his hand. "And where _is_ Karkaroff? Done a bunker, I'll bet! If that doesn't spell guilt, I don't know what does!"

Dumbledore pursed his lips, his back stiffening, cold disquiet growing in his mind. True, Karkaroff had been acting strange all throughout the night, like a skittish prey animal quite ready to bolt. His wand turned negative for Unforgiveable Curses though; still, it did not prove anything. Dumbledore was still checking Karkaroff's wand when he happened to look up and saw the Durmstrang Headmaster's face, all the blood seemed to have drained from it. He had no chance to probe any further, as Fudge and the other Ministry officials were increasingly becoming hostile against the Durmstrang party, short of accusing the latter of outright cheating. And, in the heat of the discussion that soon followed, Karkaroff had disappeared.

Tonight more than ever his mind was a whirl of doubt and anxiety. Sibyll's prophecy kept playing over and over in his head: _"Either__ must__ die__ at __the __hands__ of__ the __other __for __neither __can__ live __while __the__ other __survives..."_

Would Sybill's prophecy hold true? Clearly there was no mistaking the signs. If his reading was true, if he was not mistaken, it would not be long now and Riddle would soon try and resurrect his body. The darkening of the Dark Mark on both Severus's and Karkaroff's skins clearly indicated that. Before they came down to the Quidditch field, Severus had shown him the Dark Mark, and it was darker, more defined, than it had ever been before.

How soon Tom Riddle would put his plans into action, however, he wasn't certain, but it wouldn't be long now. But when, though? Tonight? But, how? There were many avenues, yes, each one as unlikely as the next…. But would he, Dumbledore, be able to keep himself from interfering? To do so would be the ruin of them all. He would just have to trust that Harry had prepared himself well over the past year, that his chances of surviving Voldemort were better than even odds.

But surely, even Tom would not be so foolish as to try anything tonight with the castle literally swarming with hundreds of Ministry officials? Dumbledore didn't think that even Riddle would be so bold – even if he could summon the power to take on the wizards all at the same time.

Dumbledore shook his head. He had more pressing things to worry about, foremost of which was the safety of Harry and the Diggory boy. The Hogwarts staffs were still patrolling the perimeter of the maze and he was reassured somewhat. It was unfortunate that Alastor did not see that business with Krum, his attention, he said, directed somewhere else. But Moody had assured him that the Champions were still trying to find their way through the maze, and that he would continue to keep an eye on things. Dumbledore had no doubt about Moody's ability to act correspondingly should there be trouble.

He took a deep breath. He believed in Harry more than anything. He had secretly monitored the boy's progress not just in his preparations for this tournament but all through these years. And he could not but be amazed at the demonstration of Harry's growing power. However, there seemed to be something different about Harry, something more, beyond Lily's sacrifice. He could only compare Harry's growing magic to his own, but his had developed through long years of study and practice. Harry, however, showed every sign of being a magical prodigy, even when he was a young boy at Privet Drive. Arabella Figg had given numerous testaments to this – how animals and creatures seemed to take to the young boy easily, often bringing him food. And how often did the Muggle Obliviation Squad had to step in and undo some of the magic that Harry had inadvertently done, magic that he was not even aware he had performed? Like that incident with the neighbor's dog run over by a speeding car. Harry had brought the dog to the owners, even accompanying them to the nearest vet. The veterinarian had declared the dog beyond hope, and Harry left the clinic heartsore. But soon after the dog made a sudden recovery, a turn-around so spectacular and unexplainable that it could not be explained away by simple science. But before the story could reach the local news, the Ministry had altered the memories of all the Muggle witnesses involved and transferred the dog to another county, another home. Looking back now, Dumbledore realized the dog looked remarkably like Sirius in his Animagus form – the same color, the same breed. Perhaps that was why Harry had inadvertently healed the dog, that subconsciously he remembered the dog-Sirius back when he was still a baby.

And the boy simply moved fast. When the Dursleys' son and his friends would go after Harry, they never could catch him, Harry running so fast that it spooked the children into blabbing. And so, the Ministry had to step in again before the talk went too far. And yet, when they reviewed the cases, the Ministry investigators often had a hard time determining whether Harry actually Apparated or not.

But there had been more, more instances of Harry's unusual magical abilities, even for a wizard.

…_he will have power the Dark Lord knows not ..._

When he discovered that James Potter had _the_ Cloak of Invisibility, he was sure that the prophecy was referring to the Deathly Hallows. But could he have been wrong? Was Sybill's prophecy referring to some other power Harry had, completely unknown to him?

Dumbledore was so deep into his thoughts that he did not see the pinpoint glow of blue light that signaled the arrival of a Portkey and along with it, a nightmare. It was the heart-rending and terrible screams that soon followed that brought it to his attention.

He rushed forward, fearing the worst, his heart in his throat as he bent down and turned Cedric's body over and saw the boy's dead, unseeing eyes. Dumbledore straightened up, and swept the crowds for Alastor Moody. He did not search long for soon the hardy Auror came limping forward.

"Alastor, search the grounds for Harry and bring him to me," ordered Dumbledore. The Auror nodded grimly, turned around, and limped back towards the opening of the maze.

Cornelius Fudge came running as well. "Oh my God, Dumbledore! Is that Cedric Diggory?" Fudge cried, looking down with eyes wide at the dead form of Cedric. "What happened?"

But Dumbledore could not answer. He stood amidst the grief and the chaos, straining his eyes, his ears for a sign of Harry, his thoughts racing.

"Cedric? Cedric! My boy!" Amos's anguished cries rose above the rest of the noise, piercing through Dumbledore's thoughts. He turned around sharply as Amos hurried forward, his wife, and Professor Sprout trailing behind him. Cedric's parents fell down to their knees before their son's body while Pomona stood watching, her grief no less than theirs.

"Dumbledore!"

Snape, McGonagall, and Hagrid too came running forward as did several of the other teaching staff.

"Dumbledore, what's happenin'? Where's 'arry?" Hagrid asked.

"I've sent Alastor to search for him," he said. But that was some time ago. What could have been taking Alastor so long? He cast an anxious glance at the entrance of the maze again. But still no Alastor emerged. Then his eyes landed on the Triwizard Cup now lying innocently upon the green grass where it had rolled a few feet away from Cedric's body. And the realization hit him like a falling anchor through empty space. Dumbledore felt as if cold, viscous liquid had been poured down his spine.

_Alastor!_ He was the last one to have held the Triwizard cup. He'd been in the maze all this time. He would have seen everything….

And yet said nothing.

Dumbledore drew himself up to his full height, his face horned with fury. He directed his gaze towards the maze and lifted his wand arm. He wheeled around the Elder Wand above his head, unleashing its power as he had never done before. A blast of strong wind suddenly ripped across the entire maze structure, the sturdy dwarf box hedges bowing with the force of the wind. The labyrinth was mowed down to the ground, though the creatures set as obstacles to the champions were left standing yet unhurt.

But there was no sign of Harry… or Alastor, either.

Dumbledore turned to Professor Sprout who was standing beside him looking very distraught. "Pomona, will you please take care of the Diggorys?" Professor Sprout nodded her head, her right arm clutched tightly against her stomach as if she was trying to prop herself up but her voice was as strong as she could make it when she said: "I will Dumbledore." Dumbledore then turned to Professors McGonagall and Snape. "Come with me." Without another word, Dumbledore strode across the grounds followed by Snape and McGonagall.

"Dumbledore, where are you – " Fudge cried out after Dumbledore's back but the Headmaster did not or would not look back.

By this time, the spectators had already descended down to the field and had started to fill the Quidditch grounds. Seeing Dumbledore, the crowd began shouting questions at the old Headmaster. But so forbidding and grim was the expression on Dumbledore's face that the words died in their throat and the people instead opened a way for Dumbledore as he drew near. The throng thus turned to the next perceived authoritative figure left.

"Minister, what happened?"

"Where's Harry Potter?"

"Potter's missing!"

"He's gone!"

"Potter's dead!"

"Now, now!" Fudge tried to speak over the voices. "There's no call for that! Potter's not dead!"

"Then, where is he?"

"Potter killed Diggory!"

Fudge was completely swamped. He felt helpless, inutile before the Diggorys' grief, and before the people's questioning. Thankfully, an assistant came over to him and rescued him from the crowd's ceaseless chatter.

Over at Hagrid's cabin, an Animagus Sirius had already been on edge even before he heard the screams. He alternated between sitting down on his haunches and pacing to and fro, worrying a pattern into the soft ground inside the fence where Hagrid used to keep the hippogriffs. He itched to run to the Quidditch pitch and make sure that Harry was okay. But Dumbledore had been adamant: stay at Hagrid's until I send for you or fetch you myself. With the school literally crawling with Ministry officials, it was beyond imperative that Sirius stay put and out of anyone's sight.

Then the darkness disgorged a limping Mad-Eye Moody from the direction of the Quidditch field. He looked rather to be in much hurry. Sirius's disquiet had just been confirmed. Dumbledore had pulled Moody in from retirement, to serve literally as an extra pair of eyes for Harry. That Dumbledore allowed Moody to leave must mean that something had terribly gone wrong. The Auror must be off to call for reinforcements. Sirius longed to transform back to human and walk up to Moody and ask the crusty Auror what had happened. But Mad-Eye was as twitchy as a full-grown Blast-Ended Skrewt and was liable to curse him, double tap for good measure. So Sirius could not do anything but watch the fake Moody as the old Auror limped out of the castle gates and Apparated away minutes before Dumbledore realized the deception.

~o~

Day had long died and night had awoken with the lazy, discordant sounds of light-shy creatures. The moon hung low, broken and forlorn, yet it still begrudged the night of even its meager light as it hid behind grayed clouds.

In one of the oldest villages in southeastern England, a man appeared seemingly out of nowhere right in the middle of a private road that led to a timber-framed Wealden hall house. The house had stood in these parts for generations though no Muggle had ever laid eyes upon it. But the Muggles had learned long ago to stay away from the area where bizarre accidents were known to occur. There was just something eerie about the place.

Had he the ability or if the subject had been willing, then Gregory Goyle would have sensed the presence of a rather tall person standing underneath the Wych Elm that stood sentinel at the entrance to the property. He had just attended a meeting with the Dark Lord. The Dark Lord wanted them to increase their numbers, see which wizards could be turned to their cause, which could not, and which ones presented a danger. Goyle felt flush with the reflected power of the Dark Wizard. Nobody would dare touch him now: Just let anyone try. And so he stomped up the couple of steps into the house with the assurance that they would win this war. He did not even notice the small bumblebee that landed lightly on the back of his robe as he entered the house.

It was already late and he called out to his wife. He had to call several times, each call louder, more threatening than the last one. But still she did not come. No matter. She would pay for her insolence in the morrow. He ambled to the front parlour and heavily sank down into a threadbare wingchair. He leaned to the side table where the remnants of last night's Firewhiskey still remained, the glass he used last night still there just as he had left it the night before. He poured himself a glass, not even bothering to use magic to wipe the glass clean. He took one gulp and leaned back in his chair. He had just taken another pull of his drink when he felt his body go rigid.

"Hello, Gregory."

He stared stupidly at the part of the wall he knew had been empty before from whence the voice came. _Dumbledore!_ Panic set in and Goyle struggled against his invisible bindings.

"Good evening. Or should I say good evening's work?" Dumbledore said pleasantly, though his expression was unsmiling. "I normally have better manners than this but forgive me, current circumstances demand that I employ – uhm shall we say – an unconventional manner of visiting?"

Silence filled the room except for the crickets singing their symphony outside the window.

"I see you're not answering. Shall I continue then?" Dumbledore said as he watched Goyle squirm in his seat. "I understand that you answered Voldemort's summons the night he returned. I would need your memory of it." Goyle's eyes widened in terror, for fear of the Dark Lord's wrath not the least. "Don't worry. You won't remember any of our conversation tonight. I think I can perform the Obliviate spell so that not even Voldemort could break it. He wouldn't suspect it and wouldn't think anything important can be got out of you." Goyle's eyes widened as Dumbledore approached nearer and pointed his wand at his temple. "_Legilimens_!" Dumbledore uttered the spell. But the magical bindings stifled the screams wrenched from Goyle's throat as Dumbledore forcibly extracted his memory.

~o~

Dumbledore emerged from the Pensieve weary and yet somehow renewed. He took a few infirm steps towards his desk and leaned one hand on the table to steady himself. _Tom __used__ Harry__'__s __blood__ to __resurrect__ himself.__One __thing __now __is __certain:__ Harry__ is __still__ alive.__ Lily__'__s__ sacrifice__ would__ ensure __that._

Dumbledore sat wearily down, feeling every minute of his one hundred and fifty years. _Yes,__ Harry __is__ still __alive.__ But __in __what__ shape__ or __form? __And__ where __is __he? _He remembered the ghostly figure of Riddle as he emerged from Quirrel's body, a mere shadow of his former self. _Is __that __how__ Harry __looks__ like__ now?__ But__ if__ Harry __exists __as __some__ insubstantial__ form__ or__ another,__ surely __he__'__d__ come __to__ him__ for__ help?_ Dumbledore sighed. He didn't know what he could do for Harry. But he'd rather know for certain that the boy was safe and not have this, not this uncertainty.

Then one of the paintings in the corner of the room spoke, interrupting his thought. "Headmaster, Professor McGonagall and others are downstairs requesting to see you."

Dumbledore looked at the clock, frowning. He'd sent his Patronus to the new Order members for a meeting _early __in__ the__ morning_, certain he would find out what had happened the night Harry disappeared by then. He looked out the window: the sky was lightening near the horizon, but it was still dark. Ah, but it seemed these people _—_ whom he trusted above everyone else _–_ reckoned time differently than he did. He sighed. "Very well. Send them in," he said resignedly.

He waited for a few minutes and shortly thereafter, there was a knock on the door. "Come in," he called out. The door opened and Sirius rushed in, the other people he had called for a meeting soon following behind, including a fully-restored Alastor Moody. These people he had invited to become the new members of the Order of the Phoenix, although a few were understandably absent, including Severus and Mundungus, whom he had not invited. He had reformed the group since the night of Harry's disappearance in a desperate attempt to find the boy – to no avail.

"Dumbledore! Have you got news?" Sirius began, agitated.

But Dumbledore only held up a hand. He waited until the last of his guests, the Auror Kingsley Shacklebolt, had entered the room and shut the door behind him. The room at last grew quiet with anticipation and he spoke.

"First of all, Harry is alive. I am absolutely certain now."

"Where is he? Have you found him?" said Sirius.

"Are you sure, Dumbledore? You–Know–Who hasn't got him?" Molly Weasley cried, a hand on her chest.

"I'm pretty certain."

"But where is he?" Sirius cried in frustration.

"I do not know," said Dumbledore. "But I can tell you now part of what happened the night Harry disappeared." The people in front of him began to stir. He waited for the inevitable question to follow. When none came, he spoke anew. "As you all know, the fake Auror Moody turned the Triwizard Cup into a Portkey that brought Harry and Cedric to Voldemort." The real Moody made a low snarling sound at this. Dumbledore ignored it. "Voldemort needed to use Harry in his rebirthing, killing Cedric Diggory in the process. And he has succeeded, but Harry escaped."

"Escaped? From You-Know-Who?" growled Mad-eye disbelievingly.

"It would not be the first time, Alastor," said Dumbledore quietly.

"And this is Potter we're talking about. I've seen him do magic wizards twice his age cannot do," McGonagall said, annoyed that anyone should question Harry's abilities.

"From what I have learned, Harry had successfully returned to the Triwzard Cup and taken Cedric's body with him before Voldemort could reach him. Unfortunately, Voldemort cast a final Killing curse as the Portkey activated. And that was the last anyone has seen of him."

"So, Harry did not kill Cedric," Mr. Weasley said, sounding thoroughly relieved.

"Yes, but proving it is an entirely different thing," said Bill Weasley.

"But, Dumbledore, if You-Know-Who cast the Killing Curse, how can you be sure that Potter's still alive?" Nymphadora Tonks asked.

"Because he is," said Dumbledore, refusing to elaborate.

"But how did you – ?" Remus Lupin followed Tonks' question.

"Suffice it to say that I have means."

"But where is he, Dumbledore? Why isn't he here now? Why hasn't he contacted us yet?" Molly cried.

"Unfortunately, I still do not know where Harry is or how to find him."

"So, it's true then, You-Know-who is back?" Shacklebolt said.

Dumbledore merely nodded. A chill of fear ran through every single person in the room. The room lay silent for a while, contemplating this knowledge.

Then the silence was broken by the slow, measured voice of Kingsley. "Dumbledore, you know the Ministry is going to officially name Harry as the sole suspect in Diggory's death? They are planning to issue an arrest warrant against Potter. Fudge has no choice. There is a growing clamor for it in the Ministry," Kingsley said.

"We think the Death Eaters are behind the demand. Malfoy no doubt," Arthur Weasley said.

"That is why it is imperative that we find Harry and find him before the Ministry or Voldemort does," said Dumbledore. "We must redouble our efforts in finding him."

"We're doing our best, Dumbledore! You must have an idea where we could find him!" said Lupin.

"Unfortunately, as to Harry's whereabouts, I know no more than you," said Dumbledore.

"Dumbledore, you must let me help find him!" Sirius cried.

"I'm sorry, Sirius. You know why it is not possible," said Dumbledore. He turned to the rest of the room. "But I can never emphasize this strongly enough: We need to find Harry and we need to find him soon. For Voldemort now is actively searching for him. He will never rest until he has proof that Harry is dead." He looked at each face in the room. "And I am telling you now, if we should have any hope of defeating Voldemort once and for all, it rests on Harry and Harry alone."

"Not even you, Dumbledore?" Mad-Eye barked, as if in challenge to Dumbledore's declaration.

Dumbledore hung his head low. This was the first time that he had officially acknowledged that Harry was their one, sole hope for ending the Dark Wizard. But somehow, deep down inside, each person in the room had always known it to be so.

"And now he's missing," Kingsley quietly said.

"But he's alive," said Dumbledore, his voice hoarse with a weariness that had nothing to do with his waning years or any kind of physical exhaustion_._ "It is imperative that whoever finds him, tell no one first but me. Send word by Patronus and I will come immediately."

And with that, the small group broke up carrying in their hearts one tiny hope: _Harry __is __alive_.

~o~


	3. Chapter 2

Harry Potter and the Elder Race

Chapter Two

In a lonely thicket of trees lit by a sliver of moonlight, a dark hooded figure suddenly appeared. The man lowered his hood, and stood for a time in a sea of jasmine and wild flowers under his feet. With the summer in full bloom and with the dawn approaching, the jasmine buds had started to open and the air was redolent with its fragrance. Severus Snape had kept the plant growing and flourishing for more than twenty years now, for that was what Lily's hair always smelled like.

This was where he'd been happiest, and he invariably returned here to try and recapture the time when he and Lily were still young, when they had made this private place their own, where they could be themselves freely, before Hogwarts, before she met that arrogant man….

He needed to come here, to remind himself of the promise he had made to Dumbledore, his vow to Lily, to protect her son's life – no matter how much he believed the Potter boy was dead. But Dumbledore insisted that Lily's son was still alive. But how could that be? And yet… and yet… Dumbledore was so certain, though he detected a certain misgiving in the Headmaster.

"Lily," he whispered longingly into the night. Would she know? Could she feel? Time and again he had heard Dumbledore say he believed in the afterlife. _Is__ it__ true?_

He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the scent, the memory of her, trying to imagine she was still here, trying to remember what it was like, when it was just the two of them, when she still depended on him… when she was still his….

"For you… _only_," he said, his breathe entwining with the perfumed particles of her flowery scent in the air.

Snape then turned on his heel, allowing the void to engulf him, as he Apparated just outside the warded borders of Malfoy Manor.

There were a couple of Death Eaters – new recruits – standing guard at the Mansion's front door but Snape ignored them and walked straight up the front steps. The door swung inwards, the magic recognizing the Dark Mark on his left arm, and he stepped into the hallway. He found the massive foyer empty, but he knew where he would find the Dark Lord. He walked straight on ahead and through the large parlour room. Off to the left side was a door. He knocked once, and had to wait a few moments before it opened and Narcissa Malfoy's face appeared. He immediately plastered a pleased look on his face, but knew it probably came off as a grimace. She graced him with a condescending smile back – a little stiffly, he thought. As far as everyone was concerned, his loyalties still lay heavily under suspicion.

"Severus," Narcissa said, inclining her head slightly. Behind her was a small anteroom to another, bigger room which served as the office of the mansion.

"Narcissa," Snape said, inflecting a tone of affection in his voice that he only used if it was just the two of them in the room. He knew she felt slightly guilty for this – of his "attentions". And he also knew that the Dark Lord had seen this in her mind, bolstering his own lie that he was in love with her, a lie that he took care to uphold for years now, knowing that the Dark Lord might someday return.

"The Dark Lord is still in a meeting with my husband," she said, with not a small hint of pride at this proof of the special position her husband held in the Dark Lord's inner circle. "If you can just wait a few minutes more."

Snape nodded. He sat waiting while Narcissa called in Wormtail to serve them. Secretly, he smiled at this inconvenience to them. One of the few things that he begrudgingly approved the Potter boy had accomplished. No house-elf was willing to serve in the Malfoy Mansion now, and he doubted any house-elf ever will. He knew Wormtail resented this, being made a veritable servant in Malfoy's house, but he did eat at the Malfoy's table, and the Malfoys made sure that Wormtail did not so much as sing for his supper as slaved for it.

Soon the door opened, and Lucius Malfoy emerged, wearing a smug, determined look on his face. Snape did not need to know what it was all about. He, of all people, knew about Sybill Trelawney's prophecy. After all, it was he who told the Dark Lord about it – to his eternal regret.

He stood up and exchanged polite greetings with Lucius. The latter was well aware of his "feelings" for Narcissa, but Lucius, far from taking offense, took it rather as a compliment. In his mind, it was a natural given that most people desired what he had – his money, his pure-blood status, his position in society, his beautiful and unattainable wife, and now, with the Dark Lord poised to take over _everything_, absolute power.

Snape then entered the office, closing the door behind him. The Dark Lord sat behind the desk, but his face was turned to the window outside, looking out into the massive gardens of the mansion. Snape walked right up to the front of the desk, said "My Lord," and patiently waited for the Dark Lord to give him his attention.

Voldemort continued for a time to look out the window, deep in thought. Finally, he turned to face the Potions Master. "What news, Severus?"

"My Lord, Dumbledore has reformed the Order of the Phoenix."

"And?"

"And he has asked me to join, My Lord." Snape looked up, directly into the Dark Lord's eye. "But I cannot do so without your permission."

Voldemort softly laughed. "But you must join this Order, Severus. How else are we going to learn more about that Muggle-loving fool's movement?" Voldemort considered Severus closely. "And I expect, he wants you to give information about me as well?"

Snape nodded.

"Ah. Then we will have to throw the old fool a few morsels, fit for a dog. Won't we, Severus?"

"As you wish, my Lord."

"And the boy? Any news of him?"

"None, my Lord. It was primarily the reason why he reformed the Order, my Lord: To help look for the boy. Dumbledore seems to believe that the boy is still alive."

"But you do not," Voldemort stated, eyeing him shrewdly.

"No, my Lord," Snape for once answered the Dark Lord truthfully. "From what I've heard, I don't see how it could be," said Snape, not hiding the fact that he had heard of what happened the night of the Dark Lord's rebirthing from sources other than Voldemort. It would show the Dark Lord he was not afraid of speaking the truth, even that which might incur the master's wrath. "If the boy is still alive then he would have contacted Dumbledore by now. No, my Lord, it's difficult to think so."

"Then let us be thankful that I do not rely on you to make my decisions, Severus." Voldemort's slit eyes glittered, his high-pitched voice becoming vexed. "If Dumbledore believes that the boy is still alive, then we should continue keeping an eye out for the boy, as well."

"Yes, my Lord."

"Leave. Tell the others to continue looking for the boy. Then find Avery and tell him I wish to speak with him."

~o~

Ginny longed to fly, but with her brothers around, she couldn't. So she climbed the old tree house by the back of the Burrow instead. She hadn't done so for years. Mum always said it was unladylike. But not being able to fly drove her to climb up the tree once again. She climbed all the way up, over the roof of the treehouse, then sat in one of the sturdier branches and looked out into the horizon. She drew a deep breath. Somewhere out there was Harry.

She hoped nobody in the house would notice her gone. Perhaps they won't: Mum was too worried. She'd been nervously banging around the kitchen, and that was partly the reason why Ginny wanted to be out. She couldn't stand her mum's obsessive eyeing of the family clock until Dad, Bill, and Percy arrived home. Although Dad and Percy were at work, Bill was, like the other Order members, out there searching for Harry. While Ron was upstairs with the twins, making get-away plans in case Hermione and her parents had to be removed from their house quickly. Dad had already told Ron that it was unlikely – Ginny heard them talking the previous night – that there was no danger yet, that Order members had already given Hermione's house some protection. Ron obviously was not satisfied. She wondered if Ron was aware of just how transparent he was being. But then again, she was one to talk.

So many things still remained up in the air. Everything depended on whether Harry was still alive or not. Even Death Eaters were looking for him, waiting for confirmation of his death. Ginny felt alone, separate from her family. All she had was this gripping panic trying to push its way out from deep within her gut. _Harry,__where__ are __you?_ her heart called out into the bruising sky. But she had no right to show her fear, no right to scream. She had no right to Harry.

"Ginny! Where are you?" her mum called from the Burrow's kitchen door.

Ginny sighed and knew her time alone was over. She climbed down the tree easily, not making any effort to mask the sound or hide the movement. Her mum heard the slight sound she made and hurriedly approached the tree.

"Ginny! What are you doing up there? You'll be fourteen in a month! You're a young woman now! Ladies don't climb up trees!"

Ginny continued to climb down the tree, as agile as a cat. When she was only a couple of feet from the ground, she jumped and landed lightly on her feet. She stood straight up, brushing her hands against the back of her jeans.

"And what are you doing out here? You know it's dangerous to be outside these days."

"Mum, I'm inside the Burrow."

"That's no excuse. You never know who might be watching –"

Ginny talked over her mum's words. "Mum, did anything happen?"

Reminded thus of her original errand, Mrs. Weasley spoke. "There's a Michael who kept Flooing, looking for you, even after I told him that you're not taking any calls. It's been the third time but he insists he wants to talk to you. He's waiting on the Floo."

Ginny sighed. When they met at the Yule Ball, Michael had given her the kind of attention she'd been dreaming from Harry. It was a new sensation, being liked for a change, instead of her hopeless hankering for a boy who couldn't care that she existed. She was heartbroken too at Harry's interest in Cho Chang. So she thought she might give a relationship with Michael a try. But with Harry's disappearance, so too her interest in Michael disappeared in an instant. She was too worried about Harry.

"Mum, I don't want to talk to him."

"Then tell him yourself. It's not nice to keep a boy hanging if you're not interested."

"But I haven't! I already told him. But he wouldn't lay off."

"Perhaps you should tell him again. And this time make it clear, we need the fireplace for emergency Floos. You know we're waiting for word about _–_ "

_Harry._ Ginny finished in her head. Mum seemed unable to say his name aloud these days.

Her mum turned away, hiding her face, as she often did whenever Harry's name was mentioned around her. "You go ahead, I'll just go and pick some vegetables for supper," her mum said. Ginny watched her mum's back as she walked towards the vegetable patch, her shoulders bowed. She had helped her mum pick vegetables yesterday; the Burrow's freeze box was full.

Ginny turned and slowly walked back up the house, dragging her feet. She headed straight towards the fireplace and knelt in front of it. The fire was still on and Michael's head flickered in the flame.

"Ginny!"

"Michael," Ginny's tone of voice was discouraging.

"I've been trying to Floo you three times now. Where were you?"

"Out."

"Out where?"

Ginny stared Michael down with a look that said, _Do __you __have __a __right__ to __ask?_

"Well, it's just I've been trying to Floo you three times," Michael repeated needlessly.

Ginny was in no mood for small chit-chat. "Look Michael, do you have anything important to say?" she said impatiently.

"Well, I just wanted to know if perhaps we could meet in Diagon Alley on your birthday?"

"How can I? You've heard what Dumbledore said at the End-of-the-Year feast. My mum wouldn't let me out by myself in Diagon Alley."

"You can ask one of your brothers to accompany you and fetch you back when we're ready to go home."

"Michael, did you even ask me if I want to meet with you at Diagon Alley?" said Ginny, annoyed.

"Look, Ginny, what's wrong with hooking up?" Michael said, getting fired up himself. "We can buy our books at the same time, have some ice cream, that's all I want."

"I told you. Even if I wanted to, my mum wouldn't allow it."

"Just because of what Dumbeldore said?"

Ginny narrowed her eyes. "You don't believe him."

"Well, my dad works in the Ministry. He says the Ministry now believes that Harry killed Cedric. That's why Potter's missing – he's run away. Perhaps he didn't mean to. Perhaps it was an accident. But the Ministry's about to declare him a fugitive. And if you think about it, it's really no surprise that Potter could do such a thing. He _did_ put his name in the Goblet of Fire, didn't he?"

"He didn't put his name in the Goblet of Fire!" cried Ginny hotly.

"Who's to say that? Who knows what really is true?"

"Harry did not put his name in the Goblet of Fire! He wouldn't do that! And he certainly did not kill Cedric!"

"You sound as if you still fancy him. Ginny, he's not even interested in you. Don't you think if he was going to be, he would be by now?"

Ginny stared at Michael's head in the fireplace. What an effing arsehole! How dared he speak to her that way! He had no right to! Despite herself, she started to pull out her wand. She was going to teach this git a lesson. _Decree__ for __the __Reasonable __Restriction __of __Underage__ Sorcery_ be damned!

"THAT'S ENOUGH!"

Ginny whipped her head around. Fred was standing behind her, his face as red as a Muggle telephone booth. She did not hear him come down from the stairs. She had seldom seen any of the twins this angry. The only way she could tell that they were was if they gave someone a calculating look, which basically meant painful, drawn-out retribution. They always said that anger is pointless; silent revenge is a lot more fun.

"You don't talk to our sister that way. And you never get to talk about Harry that way, either, understand?" said Fred in a low, flinty voice.

Despite the flame, Michael looked terrified. He wasn't prepared to deal with any of Ginny's brothers, even that stiff spod Percy who graduated from Hogwarts with top honors. And he certainly wasn't prepared to deal with her twin brothers. Who knew what they were capable of doing?

"If I ever hear you bothering Ginny again…" Fred threatened.

"I won't – " Michael squeaked.

Before Michael could say any more, Fred threw something into the Floo. The air was sucked out from inside the fireplace, depriving the Floo of oxygen. The fire died down in an instant with a sound of a plunger being drawn and, along with it, Michael's face, but Ginny thought she heard the faint sound of Michael coughing fit to die.

Ginny turned to her brother, beaming.

"George and I heard you and mum," said Fred with a smirk.

"Well, we were hardly trying to keep our voices low," Ginny said.

"We were actually watching you, up the treehouse. Bill said to keep an eye on you." His smile grew even wider, knowing Ginny hated that. But for once Ginny didn't mind. She usually fought her own battles, but there was something gratifying in watching one of her brothers stand up for her.

"Where's your better-looking twin?" said Ginny, though everyone knew the twins looked exactly alike.

"Upstairs. Babysitting Ron. I just sneaked down to see what you're up to." Suddenly, Fred turned serious. "Don't believe everything you hear about Harry, okay?"

"I don't," said Ginny, tilting her head up.

"Good." Fred turned and started to climb up the stairs when Ginny called out to him.

"Oh Freeed," Ginny sang, giving him a wide-eyed, innocent look.

"Yeah?" he asked suspiciously.

"I want whatever you threw at the Flooplace or Percy knows about it."

Fred's eyes narrowed. "Ingrate." Then he turned to climb back up the stairs, shaking his head, but not before Ginny caught the faint smile on his face.

~o~


	4. Chapter 3

Harry Potter and the Elder Race

Chapter Three

It was a land no mortal eyes had ever laid eyes upon for tens of thousands of years, ever since the last ascendancy of the Dunedain upon the earth, at the time of King Elessar Telcontar's rule. But with the marching of time, the lands had changed: Mountains towered and then crumbled only to rise up again, seas rose and disappeared, until even in the eyes of the Eldar, the lands were no longer recognizable. And as time marched further on, so too the numbers of Mortal men multiplied. And with their spread they had driven the last of the Elven into a few, isolated areas in the world.

But what lands remained of the Eldar, they had fiercely guarded. Thus had Imraudden remained inaccessible even to the most intrepid of human beings. The land was protected on all sides by steep high mountains, which seldom few had been able to penetrate. What few did were soon lost in the thick forest surrounding it, never to be heard from again. Only through a small sliver of flat land could Imraudden be reached to and from the outside, a sliver of land cut through by the misty and frothing waters of the Edhelmere.

And yet, forever unseen to Muggle eyes was the land on the other side of the river. For anyone who tried to cross the Edhelmere's frigid waters soon met with unexplainable accidents: Some merely developed short-term memory loss, but others were found lying, stricken with an icy sleep, cold as death. Still there were others who were never seen or heard from again. Not even the Muggles' modern telescopic eyes from far beyond the atmosphere could pierce through the misty shrouds covering the lands.

Had any human been able to cross the river, he would get the uneasy feeling of being observed by eyes unseen, just hidden behind the tall trees that stood some way from the riverbank; and soon after be assailed with an overwhelming sense that his life was in immediate peril. This was not a land for Mortal men.

On this particular night that seemed no different than a thousand nights that went before it, the swift flowing waters of the Edhelmere flowed steady and silent. At first glance, no living thing could be espied from the banks on the other side of the river, save for the brooding tall trees that stood like sentinels at the mouth of the forest. But upon closer inspection, a small canoe tied near the river bank could be seen being buffeted by the gentle motions of the waters towards the bank. And now we could see something – or someone – walking to and fro along the edge of the bank, its eyes shifting from the skiff to the bank on the other side of the river, which surprisingly could be seen clearly this side of the Edhelmere. It was a tiny thing, a human really, but not necessarily a human child. It had brown curly hair, round, rosy cheeks, and was unshod, its hairy, leathery feet never shy of walking.

The little man (for he was almost a man, as he kept insisting to anyone who would listen) kept muttering under his breath as he continued to glance from the canoe to the other side of the river, marching up and down, up and down the riverbank, furrowing a pattern into the grass that grew beneath him. It was as if he was conducting an ongoing debate with himself, bracing himself up to do something. "Yes I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it now," he repeatedly mumbled.

He was all packed and ready to leave. The tiny canoe that would take him across the river to the lands of Men was ready. He had been planning this trip for years. Years! Ever since he was little, he had heard the stories of the once great hobbits Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee – before he was known as Samwise Gardner – of how they saved Middle Earth from the Dark Lord Sauron. And he grew up dreaming and wishing that he could set forth on his own adventure, be written down in the history books. This was his only chance for such an adventure. He still wasn't sure how to survive just the river crossing. But if he didn't chance it, how then could he start on this, his greatest voyage?

He'd heard that there were still Hobbits in other parts of the country and now was the time to go out into the lands of the Big Folk, to leave Imraudden where some of his people had taken shelter under the watchful protection of the Elves. But there was also another reason why he wanted to leave this place.

They said Old King Aeldred lost his marbles after the attack of the Dark Shadow on Imraudden some years back, driven mad because it was he who sent the pregnant Queen away. And then the Dark Shadow ambushed the Queen and her retinue, and they were all killed. Except, for the Unborn Prince. Well, at least that was what King Aeldred kept insisting before he died, that the Unborn Prince somehow survived the attack. Many of his kin – and the hobbit was sure some of the Fair Folks as well (though you would never catch them admitting to it) – believed the late King's assertions were nothing more than a dying man's mad rantings.

But the late King never once wavered. Up until the very end, to the last of his breath, he insisted that the Unborn Prince was still alive. That somehow the Prince was living in the Mortal world.

Well, if that were true, he, Fosco Buntinghill, was going to find out. And by gum, he was going to do it, too! He was small. The big folk won't notice him, for they do not usually take notice of the little things that scurry under their feet. He would be the one to find the Unborn Prince.

A flash of light and Fosco fell flat on his stomach. Coughing, he spat the grass in his mouth and wiped it with the back of his hand. He braced his two arms against the ground and pushed hard as he struggled underneath the piece of the sky that just landed on top of him – at least that was what it felt like to him. Then he scurried away on his hands and knees like a many-legged insect.

When he had reached a safe distance away, Fosco turned around to see what it was that almost killed him. He found himself staring at a human, a young one by the look of it. The hobbit looked around and scratched his head, wondering how the boy could have gotten there. He knew that the Elves had wards so no Mortal could cross the river. He decided that the boy indeed dropped from the sky.

_Stupid. Stupid. Stupid._

The human must have tried to cross the Edhelmere river. But the Fair Folk had long ago made it impossible to make that journey. No one had crossed the river in thousands of years and lived to tell the tale.

And then he saw it, the wand in the boy's hand. And he knew why the boy tried to enter Imraudden. For although the wards of the glade had never been breached before, there was a time when three wizard brothers managed to build a bridge to try and cross the Edhelmere. But that was more than a thousand years ago. The Elven King then chose to take pity on the wizards, who were the Eldars' half-kindreds after all. But it was also said that the Elven King's motives were far from altruistic, for a prophecy was once made:

"….three gifts shall be given to the Elven's half-kinds,

three shall return on the Day of Doom

Three lives redeemed the redeemer's redemption

Seven against seven, the seventh of seven

Love bears a gift, true love's deception…"

What the prophecy fully meant, no one had any idea. And if the keenest minds of the Fair Folk could not decipher its full meaning, Fosco did not fool himself into thinking that he could. But three of the witching folk did indeed try to cross the river Edhelmere, and the Elf-King then thought that they were the three wizards spoken of in the prophecy.

And now here he was, staring at another wizard. He waited and studied the young boy before him. He noticed its torn and blood-spattered clothes. He scratched his chin this time. Could it have died? What if it did? Would he be accused of murdering the child? Blimey! The hobbit frantically looked about him, searching for who knew what. Something! He then saw a twig not far away from him. He crawled to pick it up then started to approach the unconscious boy warily. He prodded it with a stick, trying to see if it made any movement, but he got no reaction from it. He came closer, and knelt down beside the body. He carefully leaned down, the side of his face tilted towards the body. He leaned his head closer to the young boy's chest, stopping at the slightest movement. When he couldn't detect any heartbeat, he placed his small hands under the young boy's nose and a whisper of breath warmed his fingers. _He's still alive_!

"What to do! What to do!" The hobbit fretted, wringing his hands. He couldn't carry the young boy, it was too heavy for him. The Hobbit village was in a clearing further inland. But even if he ran for help, chances were that when he returned the boy would be dead. Maybe he ought to shout for help. But such a thing was simply not done, not this close to the Big Folk's lands.

"Move aside!" A tall Elf, one of the border guards, suddenly was standing beside him. Fosco didn't even feel them come near. But the hobbit quickly got out of the way.

"Forgive me, I didn't mean to. He just appeared."

"Silence, Hobbitt! We have been watching you for months now trying to make up your mind whether to leave Imraudden or not," said another elf. "We saw what happened."

"Oh."

One of the elves knelt down on one knee and felt the boy's heart. "He's still alive," he said. "But barely. This young human has been hurt, but not by Imraudden's wards." He stood up and looked at the other elf. "He needs a healer."

"But where?" said the other elf. "If we bring him to the castle, his life is forfeit. In fact, it already is. If he had not been unconscious, then we have no choice."

"You're not thinking of murdering him!" the hobbit cried, horrified.

"Foolish hobbit! We are not murderers, especially of a young boy. But he cannot stay."

To argue with the Fair Folk was an unheard of thing. But the hobbit couldn't let it go. He felt somehow responsible for the young human, as he was the one who found him. There was something about the young boy that tugged at his mind, causing him unease.

"Wait!" he shouted as the Elves moved to pick the young man up. The hobbit almost withered as the two very tall elves looked down on him. But he was a hobbit, made of stouter heart. "But we don't know who he is," he reasoned. "We don't know how he came to be here. What if he's in danger? There must be a reason why he suddenly appeared here."

"This is not the first time that Mortals have tried to enter Imraudden. You know this hobbit. And the law is clear. No man can enter Imraudden and come out alive. We either send him to Princess Caladhiel or we leave him in the nearest Mortal village. His kind will take care of him."

The hobbit could no longer argue this although his interest continued to burn inside him. He watched as one of the Elves picked the boy up. The elf did it gently, still, the human moaned in pain, opening his eyes slightly.

"Green eyes!" the hobbit shouted.

The Elves paused and looked down at him as if the hobbit had suddenly gone mad.

"Green eyes! He has green eyes!" the hobbit cried, jumping on the balls of his leathery feet. "Remember the King's words before he died? The Prince! _He'll have dark hair and slightly ruined eyes and green eyes! As green as the forests of Imraudden, his rightful birthplace!_ Look! He's wearing reading stones!" the Hobbit said, pointing to the eyeglasses Harry was wearing. "Can't you see? He's the unborn prince! He's come home!" The hobbit shouted excitedly.

The elves looked doubtfully at him.

"I'm telling you, he's the Prince! How else could he have crossed the Edhelmere river? Not even the magical folk could break through easily. Your arrows would be upon them if they did."

The Elves looked at each other. Hobbits are unlike Elves – they are foolish and child-like. But every word the hobbit had uttered somehow made sense.

The elf carrying the young human said, "We must bring him to the palace. I'm taking him to the Lady Caladhiel."

"But Haeldor, no mortals are allowed in Imraudden," said the other elf. "That is the law of our land."

"Look at him. Do you see his wand?" Haeldor said, for Harry still held his wand tightly in his hand. "He's a wizard. Our half-kind."

"Still, Haeldor. We cannot allow it. His life will be forfeit if we allow him passage."

"Then I will take responsibility."

The matter was thus settled. With relative ease, Haeldor carried Harry in his arms as if he were no more than a leaf. Then with the grace and speed of their kind, the Elves hurried through the open ground and through the forest that ringed the outer borders of Imraudden, running swiftly with the wind upon their feet, Fosco doing his best to try and catch up to them. Finally, they reached the glade of Imraudden where the King's Palace stood. As they approached the castle, they passed by the roundabout in the center of the glade where the ancient White Tree of Gondor stood. Their people had taken pains to preserve whatever they could of the Lost Kingdom of Gondor, whose history was closely bound to them. When King Aeldred died, the leaves of the Tree had begun to fall until only one leaf remained. But now on every branch, a leaf had magically grown: the White Tree of Gondor had began to flourish once more.

~o~

Lady Caladhiel stood on the balcony on the second floor of the palace. Although she wasn't aware of it, it was the same balcony on which the late King – her sister's husband – stood the night before her sister disappeared in the North Sea those many years ago.

As always, her mind was consumed with thoughts of her missing nephew. Before he died, Aeldred had insisted his son was still alive and living in the Mortal world but she could not see how that was possible. And yet at the same moment she had felt the terrible loss the time her sister died, she had also felt something more powerful, a feeling so overwhelming she didn't recognize it for what it was. Only some time later did she realize what she had felt alongside her grief – the sense of abiding hope and freedom –as if a great weight had been lifted not just from her heart but from the world they had called their new home. If it was true, if her nephew was still alive, if there was a small chance of possibility, then it could only have been through the power of Eärendil.

At that time she was in her home Kingdom in Noregr. But she hurried to Imraudden at once, intent on finding what had happened and came upon a Kingdom that had lost its heart. Aeldred was not only grief-stricken, but dying. For he had made the terrible mistake of uttering a sacred promise to his wife: _to be with her soon as ever he can_. For the words of the Numenorean kings was law. And Aeldred, being directly descended from King Elessar, had the same power over words as the Kings of the Dunedain had before him.

Aeldred struggled to find his young son in the Mortal world, sending the Kingdom's best Elven–warriors to search for the boy, but they never found him. How could they? It had been a long time since their kind had travelled to the lands of Men, a long time since they had dealings with any of them. The reports that came back had been daunting. The Elven-scouts found the lands much changed, their movements limited by the paucity of wooded lands and green fields where her people could move freely. And they simply had no idea where exactly to look for her nephew. When the last of the scouts came back, Aeldred had already died, completely heartbroken. But she had continued the search. She continued to believe, believed in her brother-in-law's dying words.

Her lips started to move, a sound issued forth – a whispering at first, soft under her breath, like a lullaby. It was a song, _his song_, a call to her only sister's son. For years, she sang to him, hoping against all hope that somehow he was out there, that her voice would reach him – hope undergirded by neither fact nor fancy. And as before, she pleaded for the wind to carry her words, for the creatures in the air and on land to hear and bring her voice to her missing nephew, the life of her blood. The only one left of her family.

Tears rolled down the Lady Caladhiel's face. Let them fall. Let the wind kiss her cheeks and know only pain and gnawing worry. "Aranhil!" she whispered into the night. It was the name her sister had always wanted to give her firstborn son and that was what she called him.

A ray of iridescent light rippled on the marble floor not far from her feet. Her heart hammering, Lady Caladhiel turned slowly and followed the light to the dais where sat the throne of the King of Imraudden. On one side of the throne was a large crystal vase placed on top of a pedestal. The Goblet containing the Light of the Star of Eärendil was aglow, not a scintilla but the entire pithos*of the Star's light was ablaze with a blinding, shimmering light. Her breath caught and she clutched at her throat, trying to still the rapid beating of her pulse, like that of a bird.

Only the Elven King could call that Light to luminesce. And now that the King was gone, then the Heir, the sole heir, her nephew the Prince of Imraudden.

~o~

May it be an evening star

Shines down upon you

May it be when darkness falls

Your heart will be true

You walk a lonely road

Oh! How far you are from home

Morning/Mourning yeah? You too a ?

Believe and you will find your way

~ ? A lan- ?

A promise lives within you now

May it be the shadows call

Will fly away

May it be you journey on

To light the day

When the night is overcome

You may rise to find the sun

~ ?

Believe and you will find your way

~ ?

A promise lives within you now

A promise lives within you now

For years Harry had been hearing that song in his head, ever since he was little. Especially at night, alone as he lay down in his small camp bed in Aunt Petunia's cupboard under the stairs. He would hear the song as if the leaves in the trees, the flapping of the wings of some unseen bird, the tiniest breath of a breeze were whispering the words to him.

At first, he thought he was just imagining it. But over the years he heard and understood more and more the words of the song until he almost completely knew the lyrics. Not all of it, some parts he still could not understand.

He supposed his mother must have sung it to him when he was still a baby and it somehow stayed in his memory. As a child, it felt like a lullaby, as if his mum was still around singing to him. And in the deep of the night, when his stomach was twisting with hunger, he would listen to the words and somehow feel comforted. And he would sleep, feeling loved, though his tears remained on his face until they dried.

And in the morning when he woke up, he found that food came to him. He would be sitting on the bench in the small playground at Little Whinging and a dog would walk up to him, a package of food in its mouth, offering it to him. Or he would be sitting on the same bench, and a package of food would drop from the sky. He would look up and the only thing he would see was a bird flying off into the distance. No matter how much Aunt Petunia tried to starve him, Harry knew that once he stepped out of the house, food would come to him.

Once, Dudley found him seated on the same park bench, eating a sandwich. Dudley knew that Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon never gave him pocket money, that Aunt Petunia rationed his food, and that he wasn't allowed to take food from the house, either. Dudley made a half-scowl, half-smirk (it was hard to tell because Dudley's face was all fat) and Harry knew he was in trouble. True enough, when he finally got home later that afternoon, Aunt Petunia accused him of stealing – from the neighbors, from the ref, from the pin money she kept hidden in a small tin can in the kitchen cupboard. She had no proof that Harry did any of these things that she was accusing him of, the money in the tin was untouched and there were no neighbors who came knocking at their door to complain, and yet she stuck to her belief that Harry had been stealing. She refused to believe Harry's story when he told her the truth. And ever since, before Harry left the house, she always made sure that Harry wasn't hiding any food or stolen money in his pockets or bag.

Harry had wondered about it, the same way he wondered about the other strange things that were happening around him. And when Hagrid told him what he truly was, he naturally assumed that it was part of being a wizard. But later on both Ron and Hermione assured him that it was not, that animals bringing you food was not usual behavior for them (and this Ron had attested to quite vigorously). Later when he met Dobby, he asked the house-elf about it as well. And though Dobby expressed profusely his extreme desire to serve Harry anyway he possibly could, sadly it wasn't him either. And then still later on, he had asked his godfather Sirius about it, but Sirius, too, was as equally mystified as he was. Dumbledore? Somehow, Harry felt embarrassed to ask the old wizard. In the end, he could only think that it was Dumbledore. Though something told Harry that it wasn't the old Headmaster, either.

The memories of his childhood returned to him now. But they were like clouds scudding in the sky that changed shaped as soon as it formed. Harry felt as if he were floating in a cloud, too. But the clouds here were different, they all seemed to shine with an inner glow, as if there hid a light inside.

Harry lifted a hand, trying to hold the cloud in his hand.

"What are you doing?" someone whispered beside him.

Harry turned his head towards the voice but his eyes still felt heavy and he could not open them. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to make his eye muscles function.

"Will you be waking now?" the voice asked, a bit tinny, like that of a child, except it was annoyingly close to his ear.

And then slowly, Harry opened his eyes.

A/N: im lazy so I will not paraphrase the Wikipedia entry for a pithos. There's also a reason why I used this particular word to describe the goblet containing the Star of Earendil:

A pithos (storage jar) could be turned to the advantage of an enemy, who had only to knock over a pithos full of oil and touch a torch to it to produce a major conflagration. Most of the palaces of the Bronze Age Aegean were burned at one time or another in this way.


	5. Chapter 4

**Harry Potter and the Elder Race**

**Chapter 04**

**A/N:** so sorry 4 d delay. Fell a bit under the weather, among other things. Shouldn't have made promises.

4got to give credits as well. the 'song of prayer, a song of her people' in the prologue is from LOTR II called "breath of life", (song played as Arwen kisses Aragorn when he fell off the cliff after the warg attack) and of course, Caladhiel's song is May it be, by enya.

Also, King Elessar Telcontar is Aragorn after he became King of Reunited North and South Kingdom.

Anyhoo, some of the questions are addressed in this chapter. As always, thanx 4 d reads & reviews.

~o~

Harry felt something like a small animal scurry beside him, but when he turned his face to look, there was nothing. He must have been dreaming that tinny voice inside his head for he found himself alone in a very strange room. He sat up and looked around. Where was he? How long had he been here? The place looked as unfamiliar as anything. Although the ceiling was white and lined with dark wooden beams, that was all the plainer the room could get: Upon the walls were intricate traceries of tree branches that joined seamlessly into idealized, carved human figures. The carvings were so minutely detailed and the craftsmanship so perfect, it didn't look as if this house belonged to any Muggle. And yet somehow he felt safe: From the look of things, he had been tended to rather well. Whose house was this then? Perhaps Sirius's? Had his godfather found him then? But how? He had no memory of what had happened since Voldemort's rebirth.

Voldemort! Harry sat bolt upright. _What's happening in the Wizarding world now? Does Dumbledore already know that Voldemort is back?_ He had to leave, at once! He quickly flung the bed covers aside and heaved his legs over the side of the bed. He was about to stand up when he finally registered the soft musical voices floating in through the open balcony. But it was not like any human voices he had ever heard in his life – they sounded more like angels – the music so soothing and melodious it seemed to calm his worry, the sense of urgency he felt minutes before. Had he died then? Was this heaven after all? _What is this place? _

Harry looked around and immediately spotted his wand on the bedside table. He reached out and picked it up. Although he was wearing pyjamas made of some light-shimmery fabric, he actually felt naked without his wand. Now that he was holding it, he remembered the last time he used it. He remembered, too, how it had forced the ghost-memories of Voldemort's last victims to appear – an old Muggle he vaguely recognized from a nightmare, a witch, Cedric Diggory… and his parents. A painful lump rose up in Harry's throat but he quickly pushed the sentiment aside; now was not the time for remembering.

There was a robe nearby and Harry walked over to pick it up. But the moment his fingers touched the fabric, he stopped. He brought it closer to his face and ran his hand over the fabric. Something about it was vaguely familiar. Whoever house this was, surely was rich. He remembered Aunt Petunia's bed linens that he was never allowed to touch, not even to carry upstairs from the laundry room. They felt so soft and supple. But this fabric was clearly better, of a more expensive make. He tried to remember why it was familiar to his hands, then realized it felt suspiciously like his Invisibility Cloak.

He put the robe on. Then he turned his head back towards the balcony, back to the musical voices calling to him like the sirens of yore to ancient mariners. He walked over to the open balcony doors but stood behind the curtains. He did not want to be seen by anyone should there be people outside. He did not want anyone to know that he had woken up, not until he had learned more about where he was or what he was doing here. Though he knew that wherever he was, these people surely meant him no harm. For one thing, they left him with his wand. (But then again, would these people even know what it was used for?)

Looking out at the view, he was struck by the most breath-taking sight imaginable. The palace he was in was perched on a mountainside overlooking a deep gorge. On both sides of the mountain were carpets of trees, as green and lush as the most virgin of forests. A river stretched sinuously into the distance, at places forming into pools and waterfalls. Its waters were turquoise-green, sparkling like diamonds as sunlight glanced off its surface. Harry, too, realized that the sounds of the river and of unseen, unfamiliar birds were making musical sounds all on their own. He stood there for a moment, stunned by the wonder of it all. He couldn't believe that such a place existed anywhere on this planet.

But then he became aware that the skin on the back of his neck was prickling, felt eyes watching him. Harry turned around slowly, his wand trained, his eyes scanning the room in one quick motion. Behind the curtains to his left a pair of very small, brown eyes were looking up at him. Harry only stopped himself in time from cursing the thing. He felt bad at once, thinking he had almost cursed a child. But it was no child at all! Why, he was looking at the tiniest human being he had ever seen.

"Your Highness! Please forgive me. I didn't mean to… I ain't spying or anything. I was just making sure you were alright."

"I'm sorry, what? Your Highness? Who are you talking to?" Harry said, turning his head this way and that.

"Why you, of course, your Lordship! You're the lost Prince of Imraudden! We have been searching for you for years now. And it is I as found you," the little man said, puffing himself up at the last words.

"What are you talking about? I'm not a Prince."

"Yes, you are, your Highness. You're the missing prince of Imraudden. Or maybe, I believe you are."

"What? Was my father a king then?" Harry said, starting to laugh. He found the idea extremely ridiculous. If James Potter was a King of Anything, it would have to be the King of Mischief-Making. Well perhaps not just that, but King of Quidditch as well.

"Of course, your father was a King! He was the King of Imraudden!" The hobbit then made a sweeping gesture to the lands outside.

"Imraudden? Is that what this place is called?"

"Yes, Your Highness. The Land of the Elves."

"Elves? But I'm not an Elf. I'm human. Or more precisely, I'm a wizard."

"Well, perhaps not on the outside, you're not an Elf, your lordship. But inside, you're the lost Prince of Imraudden!"

"Right," said Harry slowly. In some dim part of his brain, he was beginning to think if he had not, in fact, landed in nutterland, that he had lost his mind. But the fact that he could ask himself the question, supposedly told him he wasn't. He discreetly pinched himself. Nope. Painful. He wasn't dreaming, either. He looked back at the young human. "And what about you? Are you an elf, too?" Harry said, although the tiny human looked nothing like what he thought an elf should look like.

"No, uhm, I'm what you might call a hobbit, Your Highness."

"A hobbit," said Harry, nodding his head slowly. "And what is a hobbit?"

"Oh, just, you know, a hobbit. Like me." And the hobbit gestured towards himself, as if that was explanation enough.

"And do hobbits have names?"

"Oh, begging your pardon, Your Princeship. My name is Fosco Buntinghill, and I am eternally at your service," he said, bowing formally.

Harry didn't know whether to laugh or run like hell out of there. He suddenly felt the need to go back to Hogwarts, where everything was sane and familiar – well, after a fashion. The thought of Hogwarts, however, brought him back to reality. "I'm not a prince," he said more firmly. "And whoever you are, please, I need to get out of here. I need to go back to my school. Something has happened – my friends, everyone I know, is in danger."

"Oh, but you just got here, Your Highness, you can't just leave Imraudden. Not until the Lady Caladhiel has given her leave."

"Lady Caladhiel?"

"Well, she's the late queen Ruellien's sister. She really lives up North, but ever since you and the late Queen disappeared over the waters of the North Sea, Lady Caladhiel came down to Imraudden to help find you. And she vowed never to leave until she finds proof whether you're truly dead or not. And now you're here," the hobbit said.

Harry could not make heads or tails of what the hobbit was saying and wondered if the hobbit was having him on. He looked helplessly around the room, wondering what to do, whether he should try to escape. He had a feeling that the hobbit, friendly though as he seemed, would try to prevent him from doing so. Harry glanced back down at the hobbit looking innocently up at him. He had no desire to cast a spell on the tiny human – he looked helpless, and seemed genuinely not to mean him any harm.

Harry was still trying to figure out what to do next when the huge double doors into the room opened and two Elves entered. Elves had not been studied much at Hogwarts; they were mostly mentioned in passing, especially in myths and legends of the historical past. Unlike goblins and centaurs, Elves had no known dealings with Muggles and wizards alike for thousands of years. In fact, the continued existence of Elves had long slid into conjecture. Yet here Harry was, here he stood – before real, live, breathing Elves. They were very tall, with well-chiseled features. Their movements were steady and sure yet at the same time graceful, and they both seemed to glow from a light within.

The moment the Elves walked into the room, their eyes immediately focused on Harry. One of the Elves then turned and said something to his companion who nodded once then left the room. The remaining Elf stood there for a while, eyeing, considering Harry. Finally the Elf took notice of the hobbit, who, though looking nervous, stayed steadfastly by Harry's side.

"You shouldn't be here," the Elf said to Fosco.

"I was just wanting to see him. It was me as found him," said the hobbit.

"We know, hobbit. You've made it perfectly clear to everyone in Imraudden." The Elf's face was expressionless, though Harry thought he detected a smile in the Elf's voice. "Still, you have no permission to be here. How you came to be in this room…."

The hobbit fidgeted and made a furtive glance towards the balcony.

"You must leave before the Lady Caladhiel returns," the Elf continued. "You can leave the same way you came in," he added as seriously as before, but his twinkling eyes betrayed his amusement.

The hobbit made a squawking sound but quickly covered his mouth with his hammy hands, afraid he might give offense to the Elf. But it was rather a steep drop down the side of the palace and his limbs had become stiff and aching from all the climbing he had done over the past several days visiting the prince.

Then the door opened again, and the Elf who had previously left the room returned with the most beautiful woman Harry had ever seen in his life. Fleur Delacour would look plain if they stood side by side. She, too, was Elven. Her long, shiny hair was black, and moved, like the rest of her body, with liquid grace. Her lips were full and naturally bright red, set against milky glowing skin. Like the other elves, she too seemed to glow from a light within. Her beauty was so sublime and angelic it evoked a kind of sadness to those who beheld it – that such perfection could possibly exist. Yet the face she turned to Harry was at once both pained and hopeful.

"I would like to speak to him alone," she said, speaking softly but with undeniable authority. Her eyes had never left Harry's face once since she entered the room.

The Elves complied at once, bowing deferentially to her before leaving the room. The hobbit tarried for a second, unsure of what to do, but then quickly shuffled after the other Elves who closed the doors behind them as they left.

Harry and the Lady Elf stood for a time just looking at each other.

At last the Lady spoke. "How do you feel?" she asked tentatively. "Are you hungry?"

Harry was, but felt his stomach could wait. He had so many questions that he did not know where to begin. Finally, he picked one that was foremost in his mind. "How long have I been here?"

"We number our days differently here. A few or no time at all may have passed in Men's reckoning since you arrived here."

"But where exactly is _here_? What is this place?"

"Did not the hobbit tell you?" she said smiling. "You're in Imraudden, the Elven realm in these parts."

"I didn't know Elves still exist."

"Very few in your world do. We normally keep our existence hidden from the Mortal World – as your kind does from the magicless folks."

"My kind? You know what I am?"

"It's not that hard to discern," Caladhiel said with a smile, looking at the wand in Harry's hand. "And you must have some magical power to be able to penetrate through Imraudden's wards and still be alive. No one of your kind has breached the protection of the Elder lands for thousands of years… except for you." The Lady spoke softly, but the direct gaze she gave Harry said the words she had left unspoken: He was different. "If it had been any other time, any human who strayed into these lands would never leave again. But you were unconscious. And the Elven warriors guarding our land's borders took pity upon you. They were preparing to take you to the nearest mortal village. But you made a movement, and the hobbit saw your eyes."

"What about my eyes?"

"Do not people often tell you how unusually green your eyes are?"

"Not unusual. Just that I have my mum's eyes. And I am sure there are plenty of people who have green eyes."

"But not as brilliantly green as yours. Men's eyes won't be able to tell the difference. But we, the Eldar, can. You have eyes that are unusually green."

Harry wasn't so sure about that, but he kept his silence.

The Elf-Lady seemed to sense Harry's doubts. She smiled instead and chose to change the topic. "What do your people call you, if I may ask?"

"Harry. Harry Potter." It wasn't lost on him that this was the first time in years when he actually had to introduce himself. Since he joined the wizarding world, Harry discovered that people had a tendency to tell him what his name was.

"Harry Potter," Caladhiel repeated slowly, as if testing the name with her tongue. After a while, she spoke again. "Do you remember what happened? How you came to be here?"

His last memory in the outside world came to Harry full force now. "I need to leave," he said at once, and began to search the room for his clothes.

"Not yet. It is not yet time," said Caladhiel, calling Harry's attention back to herself. "You still have wounds you need to recover from."

Harry's brows furrowed. As far as he could tell, he had been sufficiently healed. He looked down at his arm – where Wormtail had made a cut to draw blood from, there was no scar at all left to mark the wound.

"Not the wounds that you can see. You're in Imraudden, now. And the line of the Numenorean kings from which you have descended have great healing abilities. No, I'm not talking about physical wounds," she added as Harry continued to glance significantly at his arm. "You've been talking in your sleep. Your dreams are beset with nightmares."

Harry stood silently, fearing what he might have said aloud while he was asleep.

"Besides, aren't you curious as to why you are here?" Caladhiel asked.

"Why am I here?" Harry said, throwing the question back.

"You came here, if that's what you want to know. We did not bring you here. The hobbit found you." Caladhiel started walking around the room – if the light, graceful way in which she moved could be called walking – touching an ornament here, or a decoration there, and only occasionally looking back at him as she spoke. "You have family?" she said at last.

"Both my parents are dead. I live with my mum's relatives."

"But you are not happy there," she stated, seeing Harry's face. She turned her back once again. "They call me Caladhiel. The late Queen was my sister. She died some years ago. She was with child, then. A male."

Harry felt it coming and waited to see if she would spout the same nonsense the hobbit said about him being the Prince of Imraudden.

Lady Caladhiel continued to walk around the room, not looking at him. "But it is possible that the child may have survived." She turned to face him fully now. "And I believe that child is you."

"Lady, I'm sorry for what happened to your sister and her baby but my parents were my real parents. People who knew them tell me so – I look exactly like my dad, except for my mum's eyes."

"You of all people should know that not everything that happens in this world is logical or grounded on the physicality of things," Caladhiel said, a tone of reprimand in her voice. "Otherwise, you magical humans would not be able to do what you can do."

"But how is it possible? How can I be your sister's son, and an Elven at that, when I know for certain I'm human?"

"It is not given me to know the answer. Nobody does. But you will soon discover for yourself that we Elvens are not completely without power. It just may be different from yours. Before he died, the late King, my sister's husband, who had the gift of foresight, insisted that you are still alive. That somehow you have found your way into the Mortal world. And he described you, exactly as you are now today. But there are other signs, as well: The fact that you came here, not out of your own volition, but by some other greater power. The fact that, even with Elvish medicine, your wounds have healed faster than they should. And I am certain that, even among magical humans, you are marked as being different."

That, Harry could not deny. Still it was too fantastic to be believed. "So, what you're saying is…." Harry could not continue. What in the world was the Elven lady really trying to say?

Caladhiel looked Harry closely in the face, her features softening. "You may have been born human, but I believe in you lives the soul of my nephew."

"I don't know," said Harry, completely unconvinced. Her story was too far-out to wrap his head around: He was human and Elven, too?

"Here, let me show you something," she said, leading him over to the balcony where they stood side by side. "Look, do you see that tree down below?" she said, pointing to a tree in the center of a stone courtyard. Its trunk was thin and white and it was blooming with white efflorescence. "It's the tree of Gondor, a kingdom that had long ago ceased to exist. But it was a kingdom that had become important to the Elven; Aeldred, the late King, was a direct descendant of its Kings. That's why we tried to preserve whatever we could of its heritage, the tree being one of them. The blossoming of the tree reflects the fate of the line of the Numenorean kings who were the rulers of that kingdom. If it had truly ended with the death of my sister's husband, then the tree too would have died as well. But ever since you arrived, the tree has come to full bloom." She then turned back to face Harry. "But there is more. And this I will show you later. But know this, all the signs are there. You are the lost Prince of Imraudden."

Harry shook his head. "I don't know. I guess it would be cool, if I truly were, but I don't want you to build your hopes around it."

"Why don't you search your own heart?" she said, looking him in the eye. "It will tell you the truth."

Harry turned his face away from her. He was in no mood to be "searching his own heart". It was the last thing on his mind. His brain was telling him to leave at once, go back to Hogwarts, find out what had happened since he disappeared. And yet, somehow, the urgency of what he knew must be done no longer gripped him. Still, what the Lady was saying – about him, about this whole place – was simply too fantastic to believe. Yet here he was, standing in this strange room, with this beautiful, strange woman… strange, yet somehow familiar.

The Lady was watching Harry's face closely, sensing the confusion warring inside the young wizard. She then looked up towards the upper balconies. Harry followed her gaze and now saw there were Elves everywhere, not just on some of the balconies, standing guard over the palace, but on the grounds below as well – and he now saw the source of the singing he had heard earlier. Then the Lady exchanged a brief glance with an Elven guard in one of the upper balconies, who nodded curtly then retreated inside the palace.

And then the music changed – the siren song of earlier in a language Harry did not understand segued into the song that he had always known since he was a young boy, a song time had engraved into his heart. The same song he thought the trees and the wind and the very air were whispering to him. Somewhere in the palace, someone was singing it. And this time he could hear the words very clearly.

Of course the song felt different now that he could actually hear voices singing the lyrics. He listened for a while, and heard the words he knew so well sung back to him. At last he turned his gaze back towards the Lady Caladhiel, his green eyes looking into her blue ones. "Morning yeah – ?" he asked, referring to the part of the song he could not understand.

"Mor-ni-e u-tu-li-e," she said, enunciating every syllable, she was smiling, but her eyes were overbright with tears. "Darkness has come."

Harry continued to listen to the music being played. He knew almost every word.

"Morning Alan – ?" Harry continued to ask.

"_Mornie alantie_. Darkness has fallen," she said, and now her tears had truly fallen. "Every night I sang it to you. To you alone. No one could have heard that song except my sister's son. No one other could have heard the words." She drew nearer and placed a tender hand on the side of his cheek, smiling with tears of joy. "It's been years and you have grown," she spoke sadly. "My sister would have named you Aranhil."

"_You walk a lonely road…"_

The phrase caught in Harry's mind. It was the truth. Growing up with the Dursleys, in Privet Drive, he had no one, not even friends or even playmates. He had felt so alone, until Ron and Hagrid and Hermione and later Sirius came into his life.

"…_Oh, how far you are from home…"_

"You've been away from home, Aranhil," said Caladhiel, watching him. "But now you've found a way back here to Imraudden, back to your people. _A promise lives within you_, for you are my sister's son. You are Elven-born."

Harry turned his gaze back towards the horizon, trying to take it all in. It was simply too fantastic to believe and yet deep inside, he knew it was the truth. Harry turned back to her once again.

"But how is it even possible?"

Caladhiel then proceeded to tell him the part of the story she knew – about the Dark Shadow and its attack on Imraudden. "It must have been through the power of the Star of Eärendil. That's the only possible explanation. My sister has a necklace that bears the light of Eärendil. I know she would have used it to try and save you. That would explain the light that was seen around those parts at the time she disappeared. Neither the wizards nor the magicless folks could account for it. Your soul must have transferred to your human body the day you were conceived."

"You mean to say the late Queen died so that I could live?"

"She would have done everything to save you, even at the cost of her own life."

"I see," said Harry, and there was something in his voice that did not escape the Lady's notice.

"What is it, Aranhil?"

Harry sighed. "Nothing. It's just that my birth mother too died so that I could live. I have two sets of parents, and both my mothers died so I could live."

Something of his emotions must have shown on his face for Caladhiel laid a gentle hand on his arm.

"Aranhil, what mother would not sacrifice her own life so that her child could live? Isn't that what motherhood is all about? Every time she brings a child to this world, a woman's life is already on the brink of death."

But Harry could not be convinced. How could he possibly tell Caladhiel of the guilt he felt that people have died because of him, and the fear that Cedric Diggory would not be the last?

"Aranhil, it's not your fault," Caladhiel persisted. "My sister has waited to have you for a long time. It wasn't a surprise that she did everything she could to save you; I would have done the same if I had been in her position. And even though I still grieve for my sister and her husband, still I am grateful that she did what she did, that she saved you. Selfish as it seems, I am happy. I am not so alone in this world anymore."

She drew nearer and touched him tenderly on the cheek, taking a good look at him. She brushed the hair off his face and began to trace the lightning scar on his forehead. Then she began to frown, inclining her head in puzzlement. Then her eyes stared wide and a quick flash of fear crossed her face. She turned around quickly, hiding her face from Harry.

"Is everything okay?" Harry asked.

It took her a while to answer. Then she straightened up and turned around back to him. She was smiling again. "It's nothing," she said bracingly. She hooked her arm into his. "Come, I want to hear all about you."

In the days that followed, Harry spent most of his time in long walks and conversations with Lady Caladhiel. She was extremely interested in him, and wanted to know more about his life in the outside world, especially his childhood years. For some reason Harry felt reluctant to tell her about his life with the Dursleys. Unfortunately, he had told Fosco about it in a few unguarded moments. And though Caladhiel never said anything about it, Harry suspected she knew.

But there was one thing he refused to hide from her: the fact that there was a murderous wizard bent on killing him. It was no use denying that danger followed him wherever he went, that if Voldemort learned of his association with the Elves, it would surely put them in harm's way. Harry told her everything, including the night of Voldemort's rebirth, to make her fully aware of the danger he was putting them all in. She seemed unfazed by this knowledge though, and instead told him of the numerous times in the Eldar's history when her people had met with battle and adversity.

These conversations Harry had found healing. Just being with her seemed to drain away all the ugliness in his life and he found his nighttime sleep becoming more and more untroubled. And when the nightmares did come, Fosco was always there to wake him up, for the hobbit had seldom left his side ever since he woke up. Fosco had even taken to camping in his room, often sleeping in the balcony or on the floor not far from his bed. He even joined Harry and Lady Caladhiel at meals.

The rest of his free time Harry spent in the Kingdom's library. He discovered that many Elven books had already been translated into Men's* language. One set in particular the Elves seemed to take care to translate into the dominant language of the day. It told of the War of the Rings. Harry thought the similarity between that war and the troubles he was currently in, a bit uncanny. A Dark Lord whom everybody thought was gone had returned, returned in some insubstantial form. Harry wondered if, like Sauron, Voldemort too had transferred some of his own magic and power into a ring or some sort of vessel, then realized the answer was yes. He remembered Tom Riddle, who had put a part of his memory in his diary. But how could a mere memory have the ability to wield magic? But then again, hadn't he, Harry, already destroyed the diary? And yet Voldemort was not only still around, but had, in fact, returned to full power. Still, the thought intrigued him, and he filed it in his mind, determined to ask Dumbledore about it when they meet again.

Harry couldn't decide as well which among the three main protagonists in that war he identified with the most: Aragorn, from whom his Elven father was directly descended. Legolas, whose sister it was that Aragorn's son – choosing the Immortal life – had married, thus establishing the line of the rulers of Imraudden. Or Frodo, the hobbit upon whose shoulders was heaped the burden of ending the evil Sauron once and for all.

Still Harry found reading about all those history quite fascinating, especially when he learned that the very first wizards on earth were the five Istaris who came with the Elves from the lands of the Valar. Before they arrived on earth, there had been no magical human beings. While the fate of Gandalf the Grey, Saruman the White, and Radagast the Brown were known, nothing more was heard of the two other Istaris, also called the Blue Wizards, who had been sent to Eastern and Southern Middle-Earth, right smack in the middle of Sauron's territory. When at last peace came and Legolas had built his Elven kingdom in Ithilien, the Elven had tried to discover the fate of the missing wizards but learned nothing. It did seem to indicate that from either or both of the Blue wizards magical humans had descended. For what reason the Blue wizards might have cohabited with humans would never be known. Perhaps they were overwhelmed by the task they had been handed, given the power of Mordor; perhaps to make themselves allies, for there were few, if none, available to them in those dire lands. Despite whatever reason, the Elves had considered magical humans as their half-kind since then.

Harry continued to read more. By comparing various versions of the same book, Harry slowly started learning Elvish language. Fosco had been a lot of help, too – fetching books or translating some of the more unfamiliar passages for him. Though Harry soon learned never to ask the hobbit for information on a particular subject, for Fosco's version of things tended to be on the (much) embellished side.

As Harry continued to read books in the library, he did not realize that Lady Caladhiel often watched over him, standing in an upper balcony of the library room looking down at him. Haeldor, who was in fact the Captain of the Royal Guards, often joined her on these silent vigils, there to assess Harry's progress, doing it silently, in deference to the Princess. One day however, he felt compelled to speak to her openly.

"_Hiril vuin__, iston de mel__iodh_," he said to her. "But take care that your love strengthens him rather than weakening him. He cannot stay here, My Lady. You cannot keep him safe here forever."

Lady Caladhiel kept her silence and continued to watch Harry as he read. Then she turned around and left without a word.

The morning after this exchange, Haeldor approached Harry and asked him if he wanted to join him and the other Elven guards patrolling Imraudden. Harry was only too glad to do so, starting to feel stifled within the confines of the palace.

But the Elves could only move according to Harry's speed, and took care to travel through obstacle-free trails, which shamed and frustrated him at the very least. He felt like a little child whose every step must be guided by an adult. Though he had always been fast – running away from Dudley and his gang gave him plenty of practice – he just couldn't match his Elven brothers no matter how much he tried to run as fast or as fluidly as them. Nor, like they did, could he move as silently or lightly through the forest they left no footprints on the ground.

Still he enjoyed these rangings tremendously – the feeling of freedom as he ran with the other Elves, the earthen smell of untouched forest, its natural beauty, stirred the Elven in him. So every day he pushed his body harder, and soon was gratified to find small increments in his speed. In a matter of short time, he and his Elven brothers were running like gazelles in the woods, clearing hurdles easily, though admittedly the Elves picked out the trails for him. The Elves instinctively knew to avoid any obstacles, guided by their intense awareness of their surroundings, their ability to spot a moving object a considerable distance away – things that marked Harry as different from his Elven brothers.

But running was not the only thing they did. Upon reaching the land's borders, the Elven patrollers would climb up a tree several meters from the edge of the forest and from there watch for intruders. No wonder it was impossible for any outsider to break through Imraudden's wards, the Elves had already seen them even before they could set a foot near the borders. Harry marveled, too, at the patience of these Elves, who could spend hours standing and watching their surroundings silently. Only once was this self-control broken while Harry was with them. It was at the time when a younger Elf (the truth was, the said Elf was forty-eight years old, which apparently made him still a teenager in Elven years) was with them.

They had been watching the border lands when suddenly the young Elf pulled an arrow from his back, nocked it, trained it some distance away, drew, and finally let loose – all in a matter of seconds. One of the guards glanced once to follow the path the arrow had taken, then turned back to scanning the borders, disinterested. Harry watched as the young Elf climbed down the tree then felt Haeldor watching him. He looked up at the Captain of the Royal Guards, who then followed after the young Elf. Harry took it to mean he should follow as well, and climbed down easily after them.

The young Elf was running swiftly, but lightly, through the forest, with Haeldor and Harry following quickly behind him. Then the young Elf stopped when he finally reached the area where his arrow had landed. He picked it up, laughing in delight as he saw that his loosed arrow had pierced a falling leaf right in the center of the blade – exactly where he had intended it.

"Would you like to try?" Haeldor asked Harry.

"How can I?" Harry said. Even though he had been practicing with a set of bow and arrows Haeldor had given him, he wouldn't be able to see that far and doubted that he could move as quickly. He pushed his eyeglasses up the bridge of his nose, as if to emphasize his handicap. "Not with these eyes, I can't."

"That's because you are using your human eyes to see, Master Aranhil. You must close them and let your inner self feel your surroundings." When Harry still looked doubtful, Haeldor added: "Just focus your mind, _Hîr vuin_. Trust in who you are. You are no mere mortal."

Thus prompted, and thinking he had nothing to lose, Harry closed his eyes. He began to explore his surroundings by feel rather than sight, his arms slightly outstretched. He listened to the noises around him, the fluttering of leaves being blown by a slight breeze, felt the breath of air upon his skin – trying to reach out with his mind to find out what lay around him. And slowly, he began to get a sense of things around him, particularly the life force in and around himself. He thought he could feel the differences in the energy of these life forces. Images started to form in his mind, each according to the degree of the vitality of the object: Haeldor, the young Elf, and the other Elven guards with them appeared in his mind as brilliant light images of themselves, the trunks of the trees, leaves, the earth - everything according to their life force. Slowly, a clearer, fuller picture of his surroundings formed in Harry's mind, the immediate area at first, but, as he sent out his thoughts farther round him, he realized he could feel most anything, including the nest of birds upon a distant tree. He increased his concentration, sending his thoughts further, deeper into his surroundings. But then he began to sense something else: a blackness, an impurity, deep inside himself. He was so surprised at detecting its presence that he foolishly delved deeper inside his subconscious to try to find out what it was. And then like a blast of lightning, he felt pain as he had never felt before – as if his head was repeatedly being stabbed with a serrated knife. His eyes began to tear up and then his knees buckled under him.

"Aranhil!" Haeldor rushed forward as Harry fell, catching him before he reached the ground. Harry's mind clouded with pain and darkness until black oblivion completely overtook him.

~o~

A/N: had to cut off this chap at this point coz I felt there r too many things going on to dump in one chapter.

_Hiril vuin__, iston de mel__iodh – _My Lady, I know you love him_._

_Hîr vuin – _My Lord


	6. Chapter 5

**HARRY POTTER AND THE ELDER RACE**

**Chapter 05**

When Harry regained consciousness, the first thing he became aware of was someone gently wiping his face with a wet cloth. He opened his eyes with difficulty, his head still throbbing with residual pain, and saw the beautiful face of Caladhiel looking worriedly down at him.

"_Man mathach_**?" **she asked**.**

Harry tried to speak but his throat felt very dry. He also felt extremely fatigued. Still, he struggled to sit up and Caladhiel gently helped him. He glanced round the room and his eyes fell at the pitcher of water beside his bed. Caladhiel, understanding, immediately reached out to pour him a glass and helped him drink from it.

"What happened?" he asked after drinking in his fill.

"_Ú-renech_?"

Harry thought back and now remembered what he was doing before he felt the pain, his attempt to deepen his sense of surroundings, and the dark presence he felt inside of him. It wasn't a part of him, that he was sure of. He didn't know what it was. But now he thought he recognized the pain. It was the same way he felt whenever Voldemort was around. But why did he feel Voldemort here of all places? And why now? Was the Dark Wizard near him? No, that couldn't be. He touched the lightning scar on his forehead. A part of Voldemort then? Inside of him? But how? Was it the reason why he could feel Voldemort?

Caladhiel was watching him. "Aranhil, is anything the matter?" she said, placing her hand on top of his.

It was supposed to be a question, but there was something in the way she spoke that made it feel like a statement. Harry slowly turned his eyes towards her, awareness dawning, and stared into her clear, blue, steady eyes.

~o~

Lady Caladhiel stood bathed in the brilliant glow of Eärendil's Starlight, her Elven eyes feasting upon rather than being blinded by the dazzling light. Since Aranhil arrived in Imraudden, the Starlight had not ceased shining. But after their first conversation, she had had the Goblet of Starlight moved into a side room in the throne room, where the numerous treasures of Gondor and the Eldar were being kept.

"Do you think Aranhil will be given the choice of Immortality?" Caladhiel asked, her eyes fixed upon the Goblet as she addressed Haeldor standing a few steps behind her.

"It is possible, My Lady," Haeldor said. "That the Prince has survived up to this point is proof that he has the grace of the Valar."

Caladhiel contemplated this, latching on to the hope it gave. "How has he been doing?" she asked after a time.

"His abilities have improved remarkably, My Lady. The Prince can move and run as any of us, though he has yet to realize that he no longer tires as Mortals should – or at least he has not spoken of it. The Prince is very modest, _Hiril __nîn_."

Caladhiel smiled a small smile, knowing this for herself. She turned around to face Haeldor. "How long do you think until he will be ready?"

"If Aranhil's awareness of space has heightened – "

"It has," said Caladhiel at once.

"But the Prince's body is still that of a fifteen year old human. To harness the power of Eärendil now might be too overpowering for him."

Caladhiel turned back to the Goblet where it continued to radiate its iridescent white glow. She reached out a hand to touch the glass jar. It was comfortingly warm. "I want him trained as soon as he regains his strength. I want him to be as strong as we can possibly make him."

Haeldor was about to raise an objection, but knew it would be futile. "_Be iest lín, Hiril vuin_," he said.

~o~

It was two days after the incident in the forest before Harry felt well enough to rejoin the patrol runs. He noticed that this time the Elves weren't giving him any slack, expecting him to keep up with them, match their own pace. It surprised him, but was pleased to find that he could very well hold his own. And he noticed too that, of late, their conversations had turned more and more about battles and war.

After the patrol runs, Haeldor would bring Harry to the stone-paved arena near the palace to drill him not just on archery, but in sword- and Elven blade-fighting techniques. When he was first presented these weapons, Harry thought they were merely gifts, more for ornamentation – for each and every weapon was a fine example of the Elven's craftmanship. He never thought that the Elves actually expected him to _use_ them. True, Haeldor had been teaching him for some time now, but these recent trainings were becoming more and more intense. One day, after a particularly rigorous practice session on sword-fighting, Harry felt he'd had enough.

"Tell me again why I need to learn these things?" Harry said, slightly annoyed, as he pulled out his wand and began to twirl it in his hands, trying to show Haeldor what he really thought of these exercises.

But Haeldor turned out to be quite immune to any form of teenage sass – royal or otherwise.

"You can learn how to be a wizard back in your magical school, Prince Aranhil," he said, glancing unconcernedly at the phoenix wand in Harry's hands. "But as long as you are in the Elder lands, you will learn the Elven ways." Then he lit upon Harry without warning, hammering into him with his Elven sword without mercy, without let-up. Harry was barely able to parry the first salvo of swordblows in time.

Harry knew the Elven prided themselves in elevating everything they do into an art form, that precision and skill were valued above all else, but he was resorting now to bush-league sword-fighting techniques, flailing his sword this way and that in the hopes of hitting... something, preferably his opponent. He was probably making a fool of himself in front of the Elves, a sizable number of which had gathered round them to watch the fight. Fosco, who had been watching the practice since they began, was now jumping up and down on the balls of his feet, biting his fingernails in apprehension, and shouting instructions – none of which were useful – to Harry. But Harry was barely able to keep himself on his feet, let alone fight with any kind of competence. Several times Haeldor had come close to hitting him, but so precise and absolute was the Elf-Captain's control that he was able to stop the blow millimeters before the sharp blade could touch Harry's skin.

Yet still Haeldor wouldn't stop. Harry was literally flying on his feet, either to avoid Haeldor's strikes or try to meet them head on. The fight was becoming so desperate that Harry thought of pulling out his wand to protect himself but knew the Elven would consider the action base and unsportsmanlike.

Thus Harry found himself needing to rely more and more upon his Elven senses to detect where the strikes were going to come from next – Haeldor was moving so fast that if he had not his Elven sight, Harry would have a hard time seeing Haeldor as more than a blur.

But the more they fought, the more Harry realized that Haeldor was protecting him even as he was raining sword strikes down at him. Finally, Harry allowed himself to relax. It was training, after all. He then began concentrating more on his fighting techniques, trying to remember everything Haeldor had taught him.

And so the real fight began. The air began to ring with the clang of their swords: the clash of metal against metal. Their swords glinted in the sunlight, flashing with each thrust of the blades. With the fluidity of his newfound Elven senses, Harry began to dance, blocking easily each and every one of Haeldor's sword-strike.

Then he felt it. A fast moving arrow was coming straight towards him. Harry turned around in time to bring his sword down, cleaving the arrow cleanly halfway down its shaft. Haeldor came at him again, but Harry was already aware of the coming attack. He parried the blow and had enough time to turn around to hack at another incoming arrow, and another, and another. Now two other Elf-warriors joined in on the fight. And Harry faced them, dancing on his feet, parrying every blow.

Whistling arrows and swordblows continued to rain down upon him, but Harry coolly blocked them; Haeldor had taught him well. He felt his magic began to tingle and soon a brilliant Shield formed around him, the arrows arrested in their flight before they could reach him, dropping harmlessly to the ground. As the fight blazed on Harry's sword began to glow with a blue luminous light. And then with a downward thrust and a loop of his sword Harry disarmed one Elf warrior, and sent the other Elf's sword flying with an upward thrust. Now it was back to him and Haeldor alone, with the latter still on the offensive.

Until Harry decided to return the favor.

He now unleashed a flurry of blows, pounding the Elf-captain with swordstrikes one after the other, coming from one direction to another, his blade glowing so bright that it appeared to be made entirely of pure light. His will was now one with his body, which obeyed his every thought instantaneously. Harry continued to ram Haeldor down with his ringing strikes, the Elf-captain reduced to a defensive position – their roles earlier completely reversed.

Then Harry bore down upon Haeldor with one last final blow, the force behind it so strong that it brought the Captain to his knees. They stayed like that for a few seconds, frozen in that position, both staring at their entangled swords. Then suddenly, Haeldor's Elven sword began to crumble into dust.

They both stared at the hilt of Haeldor's sword, which was all that remained of the Elven weapon. Harry took a few steps back, and stared back down at the still-glowing sword in his hand, completely dumbstruck, while Haeldor lithely got back to his feet. Harry stared back at Haeldor who merely smiled at him – as if what happened was something to be expected. Haeldor then made a small, respectful bow.

Off to the side, the hobbit was jumping on his feet once again, this time in jubilation, shouting: "Prince Aranhil! Prince Aranhil!"

Then the crowd of Elven spectators separated, and Caladhiel emerged, beaming, her hair and long gown streaming behind her as she rushed forward. She ran straight towards Harry, throwing her arms around his neck as she hugged him tightly.

~o~

Harry and Caladhiel returned to the palace with Haeldor. When they reached the entrance hall, there were two Elven scouts in travel-worn cloaks already waiting for them. Harry knew that Caladhiel had been fielding these scouts to the outside world, but he was never included in their discussions whenever they returned to report back to her.

The Elven scouts stood in attendance and bowed in respect when they drew near.

"What news?" Caladhiel immediately asked.

But the two Elven scouts threw Harry a cautious glance, not sure if they could freely speak in front of him. Caladhiel noticed them looking. She turned to Harry and asked, "Aranhil, would you like to come?"

Though surprised, Harry agreed.

Caladhiel then led them into the throne room and then on to a side door where Harry had never been before. In fact, he hadn't even noticed the room, the door's panels built flush into the wall they seemed to disappear.

Caladhiel entered the room first, with him following immediately behind. She must have switched on a light or something because as soon as he stepped a foot through the door, blinding light flooded the entire room, as if someone had dropped the sun right in the middle of the room. Harry had to raise an arm in front of his face – as did the others – to shield his eyes from the dazzling light. He turned his head towards the source of light – a large crystal vase placed upon a pedestal on the other side of the room. His eyes were completely drawn to it, the light seeming to dance in an array of pure, white light and then breaking into its minutest of colors, performing a veritable light show in front of them. Harry was then seized with a weird sense of happiness, so deep and complete his heart seemed to burst so that he had to take a moment to calm himself, blinking slowly. He smiled as if in content, and when he turned to Caladhiel he was surprised to see her watching him, wearing the same smile on her face.

He then looked around the room. It seemed to be some sort of museum, a repository of everything important to the Eldar. He noticed that some of the paintings and art were the exact replicas of those he had already seen elsewhere in the palace – like the painting of Isildur cutting the ring off Sauron's hand, the crowning of Aragorn, Frodo and Sam being borne by the Great Eagles away from Mt. Doom. But he guessed that these were the originals, and those outside were mere copies. But the Goblet of Starlight called to him once again. He turned to Caladhiel and was about to ask her what the Goblet was but then caught a look that passed between her and Haeldor. It was a knowing look, a seal of understanding, something he felt he ought not to have seen. Harry quickly turned his head away from them, pretending to still be looking around the room when Caladhiel called his name.

When Caladhiel saw that she had Harry's attention, she then turned back to the scouts. "You did not have any problems in the outside world?"

"No, My Lady. Our cloaks continue to protect us."

"Nobody has seen you or followed you here?"

"No, my Lady," said one of the scouts. He glanced once at Harry, but now that he knew he had leave to talk, added, "The Wizarding folk are still looking for the Prince. But now they have widened their search to include the magicless population."

"Are there any news of deaths?" Harry asked anxiously. "Or of Voldemort?"

The Elven scouts looked from Harry to the princess, unsure.

"Show him," said Caladhiel firmly. "He can make better sense of your tidings than we can."

One of the scouts then pulled out a bundle of folded copies of newspapers from inside his cloak and handed them to Harry.

Harry took the papers and began to read. Caladhiel read them, too, standing by his side. He started with the wizarding papers first. He read the headlines:

**OFFICIAL INQUIRY INTO THE DEATH OF HOGWARTS STUDENT CEDRIC DIGGORY TO START SOON. **

**HARRY POTTER TO BE TRIED IN ABSENTIA? **

**ALIVE OR DEAD? MAGICAL TRACE OF HARRY POTTER UNABLE TO DETECT ANYTHING. **

**SEARCH EXTENDED TO FOREIGN COUNTRIES.**

Still there were more articles about him, which disturbingly focused on the "growing clamor" from the "wizarding public" for him to be officially declared as the suspect in Cedric Diggory's death. One front-page news article even contained an interview with Lucius Malfoy:

"We don't know the danger this young boy poses to the Wizarding world. The Potter boy must be apprehended. My family and I are giving huge reward money to anyone who can give information as to Potter's whereabouts. My son and his friends can attest to the unstable nature of young Mr. Potter. Remember, he is known to be good friends with half-giants and werewolves, and he had even tried to defend a dangerous hippogriff in the past."

Harry's jaws tightened as he remembered the night of Voldemort's return, how Lucius Malfoy groveled at Voldemort's feet. Harry turned now to the Muggle newspapers, which had several notices of him missing. There were three different ads, each giving a different contact number, two ads promising reward money for any information leading to his arrest. One contained as unflattering a picture as anybody could ever have taken of him, though Harry did not know that such a photo of him existed. But the other two notices, both endorsed by the Muggle Prime Minister's office and naming him as a student in a highly exclusive boarding school in Scotland, called only for his safe return. Harry did not need Hermione's brains to figure out which side had issued which notices or that Dumbledore must be having trouble convincing the Ministry of his innocence. And Lucius Malfoy must be feeling especially confident if he was willing to show his hand like this.

Harry turned to Caladhiel as soon as he was finished reading. "I have to go back," he said. "Soon." He watched her face anxiously, but she merely smiled.

"Do you have a safe place to go?" she asked.

"Yes," Harry said, taking a sigh of relief. "Back at my school. To Dumbledore."

"Your school's headmaster?"

"Yes."

"You are certain that he can be trusted?"

"Yes."

Caladhiel turned back to the newspaper in Harry's hands. "What is this magical Trace they have mentioned?" she asked.

Harry scanned again the article Caladhiel mentioned, giving it more than a passing read. "It seems the Ministry has a way of detecting underage wizards," he said. "I don't know the spell or if it can be undone. But I think as soon as I step out of Imraudden, the Ministry will immediately know my location." He looked at Caladhiel. "If only we could send a message to one of my friends."

"If you please, My Lady," interrupted one of the scouts. "All of the Prince's friends and associates are being watched constantly by his Ministry. And we are certain that some of the wizards we have seen are servants of the enemy. They kept a constant lookout at the houses you asked us to observe."

Harry was surprised. He didn't know Caladhiel had ordered that his friends' houses be monitored.

"Only our cloaks prevented us from being seen ourselves," continued the scout.

"Cloaks?" Harry asked.

"Elven cloaks, Aranhil," said Caladhiel, turning back to him. "It protects us, prevents our enemies – any mortal in fact – from seeing us when we go to the outside world. It also protects us from magical humans."

"You mean an Invisibility Cloak?"

"It renders the wearer invisible to mortal eyes, so yes."

Harry thought for a minute, remembering the Elven robe he held in his hands the first time he woke up in Imraudden. And he now remembered too the story he read about the War of the Rings, the cloaks Lady Galadriel gave to the members of the Fellowship of the Ring.

"What is it, Aranhil?" asked Caladhiel.

"Nothing. It's just I own one."

"You have an Invisibility Cloak?" Haeldor said at once.

"Yes."

"Do you know what it is made of?"

Harry's face drew a blank. He was going to say _Fabric_? but he doubted that was what Haeldor meant.

"He meant if it was made of demiguise hair," said Caladhiel kindly. "It's what your kind uses in making Invisibility Cloaks."

"I really have no idea." Now Harry came to think of it, he really didn't know much about his Invisibility Cloak, except that his father once owned it. But he was sure Sirius would know. He'd have to ask his godfather the moment they see each other again.

"How long have you had this Invisibility Cloak in your possession?" persisted Haeldor. Demiguise hair deteriorates over time – in ten to fifteen years – becoming opaque, rendering the Invisibility Cloaks made from such material useless.

"Since I joined the Wizarding world. Dumbledore gave it back to me, he said it belonged to my birth father."

"It is more than fifteen years at least?" asked Caladhiel.

Harry mulled for a minute. "Yes. I know my father already had it when he was still studying at Hogwarts," Harry said, remembering what Remus said once about watching his father disappear into it numerous times. "So, at least eighteen, twenty years?"

Caladhiel and Haeldor exchanged another fleeting glance, while the two Elven scouts stared in shock at Harry. The return of the three Elven gifts was a harbinger of perilous times for the Elder race. Haeldor's quick eyes noticed, and shook his head sharply at the two, who immediately relaxed the expressions on their faces. Harry, on the other hand, was too preoccupied with the problem of how to get back to Dumbledore to notice.

"But how are we going to deliver a message to Dumbledore?"

"Still, even with our Elven cloaks, it will be very difficult with too many eyes watching, My Lady," said one of the Elven scouts, whose voice shook slightly. "Not impossible, but very difficult."

"We may also have difficulty convincing your friends who we are," said the other Elven scout to Harry. "We are not afraid, Your Highness, but too long has it been since we roamed the outside world. We are not familiar with your world, and as yet could not move with confidence."

"Besides, we do not want knowledge of our existence reaching unfriendly ears," said Haeldor, speaking directly to Harry. "Not just yet, Lord Aranhil."

"No. I don't want it known to anyone outside, either," said Harry firmly. He thought for a minute. "Perhaps I can travel by Portkey, directly back to Hogwarts," he said. "But I don't know how to make one."

"Portkey? The magic that brought you here?" Caladhiel asked. At Harry's nod, she said, "We can acquire it ready-made."

"You can do that?"

"It's easy enough. Imraudden is full of precious stones and things that Mortals seem to value a lot. And we do trade these precious stones with the outside world every time the need arises," said the Princess. "I think it is the best way." She turned to Haeldor for confirmation.

"I think so, too, My Lady," Haeldor agreed.

With that, the plan for Harry's leaving was concluded. But Harry lingered for a while, glancing at the Goblet of Light which continued to radiate its dazzling luminance. Normally Caladhiel would tell him things even before he asked her. But she acted as if the Goblet wasn't there at all. Instead, there was a strange tension in the room that he could not understand. When some time passed and still nobody said anything, Harry excused himself and left the room.

The Goblet was still on his mind when Harry went back to his room. Could it be the Star of Eärendil? That Goblet of Light surely was important. But why would they not tell him about it? Perhaps Fosco would know. When he got back to his room though, he found it empty. Normally, Fosco would wait for him there. He wondered if Fosco had gone back to his family in the hobbit village – Fosco would sometimes spend a night or two there. However, Fosco's things were still in the corner of the room where le left them; and he never left the palace without first telling Harry, either. Still, Harry went out to the entrance of the palace, where there were two Elves standing guard. He asked them if they had seen Fosco and both said no. So where could the hobbit be?

He began to search the entire palace. He finally tracked the hobbit down in the East Tower-keep where he'd seldom been in. Harry vaguely knew it to lead to the women's quarters, although he was not certain. But he decided to try there anyway, having searched the rest of the palace and failing to find the hobbit. Sure enough, upon reaching a turn in the corridor, Harry heard Fosco's tinny voice echoing from one of the open doors. Harry followed the hobbit's voice.

"…I swear, My Lady, you're the most beautiful Elf-maiden that I have ever seen…"

A peal of musical laughter broke out and then a female Elf's voice answered. "You always say that, Master Hobbit, to every female Elf you speak to."

"No, I swear! Lady Merinelle is the most beautiful Elf-lady in all of the kingdom."

"Should we take your words as truth, Master Hobbit? When we have heard you numerous times declaring that Princess Caladhiel is the most beautiful star to ever brighten the entire universe?"

Another round of laughter followed this. Harry smiled, imagining the hobbit's discomfort at having been caught at a lie.

"I can't help it. You all look so beautiful to me," Harry heard Fosco's mumbled reply.

"You do know that your sweet words will not make your cloak get finished faster, don't you?"

Harry finally reached the door, which turned out to be a weaving room of some sort, at least he thought the large wooden mechanism dominating the room was a loom. In any case, there were several Elven ladies gathered around working on some fabric. They were all seated on low footstools while Fosco sat at their feet. One of the Elven ladies saw Harry standing by the door and stood up immediately. "Lord Aranhil!"

The other Elven-women glanced up at the words and stood up as well, their heads bowed. Fosco scrambled to his feet after them. "Your Prince!" he said.

"Ehrm, sorry to interrupt," Harry said. "I was just looking for Fosco."

Fosco rushed to Harry's side by the door. And then there was a moment of awkward silence. Harry didn't know what to do. Except for Princess Caladhiel, he had very little interaction with Elf-maidens and so didn't know how to act around them. When none of them offered to speak, Harry thought it was time to go.

"Well, then…ehrm…we're going now," he said.

The Elf-maidens all nodded their heads. None looked up to meet his gaze. Harry then hastened to leave, with Fosco following immediately behind him.

When Harry and Fosco had gone, the Elf-ladies sat back down and returned to work on the cloaks they were making. They worked silently for a time. It was the first time they had seen the Prince this close, except when he had been unconscious, taking turns helping the Princess tend to him. Even though they believed he truly was the missing Prince, still, his mortal appearance was strange to them. For one thing, he had wild, unruly hair.

One of the senior Elf-ladies, however, seemed unperturbed by Harry's sudden appearance. As she continued to work with the cloth in her hands, she kept eyeing the youngest among them, a teenager by their standards, the one called Merinelle, whom Fosco was making love to with his sweet words. She noticed the young elf-maiden's face was red and her hands were slightly trembling. At length, the senior Elf-lady spoke, directing her words to Merinelle.

"My child, you ought to guard your face whenever the Prince is around," she said. "It's a good thing that your face is turned from the door and his attention was focused on the hobbit. I could see it, child – your love for the young prince is written all over your face."

The other Elf-maidens ceased what they were doing, and watched the Elf-lady and Merinelle with rapt attention.

Merinelle herself kept her head down. It was considered rude to speak back to one's elders. Besides, it was the truth. She had been very taken with Prince Aranhil ever since those first nights when she had helped Lady Caladhiel tend to the unconscious prince, bringing a bowl of water and washcloth into his room. She tried to remember her feelings those times: anxiety, wonder, relief at finding him. Even then, she thought him very handsome, even for a Mortal. Since then, she only ever heard good things about Prince Aranhil, especially from her father, Haeldor, who was not an easy one to please. And hadn't she herself just witnessed how the Prince fought with her own father? She thought her heart would fly out of her chest – it was beating so. And if the Prince could command her father's loyalty and devotion in so short a time, how could she possibly not fall for him?

"It is not wrong to love, child," the Elf-Lady said kindly, her voice full of the wisdom of all the centuries of her life. "_Dan lasto i beth __nîn__, Merinelle: I __caun__ fair_. They do not love as we do. Do not commit your heart so soon."

"My father said that the Prince may be able to choose to become Immortal," said Merinelle, speaking up for the first time.

"Perhaps that may be true," the Elf-Lady said placidly, her hands steady at her work, glancing up only once as she spoke. "But even if he does, will the Prince choose _you_?"

~o~

When they had passed several corridors away from the weaving room, Harry deemed it safe enough to speak. "What were you doing in there?" he asked Fosco.

"Well, I figured that now that you've become powerful and everything – "

"Powerful?" Harry said, an eyebrow raised.

"You remember what you did to Master Haeldor's sword!" said Fosco, skipping sideways on his feet to look at Harry's face and keep in step with him. "That's no ordinary Elven-blade, Prince Aranhil. And I don't know how you did it, but it's already nearly impossible just to nick the battle sword of the High Elves. But to turn it into dust…. And you didn't even use your wand, Master Aranhil!" Fosco returned to walking face-front, now with a definite swagger. "I knew it!" he exclaimed, pumping his fist into the air. "The late king always said that you would be powerful!"

Harry became silent. Neither Caladhiel nor Haeldor told him the significance of what had happened in the training arena. "But what were you doing in the weaving room?" he said after a moment.

"Oh, I was asking the court ladies if they can make me an Elven cloak, too. I figured that when you leave this place, I'm going to come with you."

That stopped Harry in his tracks. "Come with me?"

"Begging your pardon, Your Highness, but I've always meant to stay with you," said Fosco seriously.

"But Fosco, where I am going, there's always going to be danger."

"I know that," said Fosco, his head bowed, tracing circles with his foot on the dark stone floor, sneaking glances up at Harry from time to time. "But as my ol' dad used to say:

_Danger follows everyone, whether they will it or not._

_But only the fool who fears it, keeps looking back to see it_. – "

"_And whither he goest, that man will surely falter, for failing to look straight at the road he's after_," Harry finished with a laugh. "I already read it in one of the Elven books."

"So you see why I have to stay with you, Prince Aranhil," said Fosco. "I know I was meant to find you, that I was meant to help you – such help as I could offer. I can't stay behind now just because I fear getting hurt or somethin'. Why, I couldn't go back home to face my family or even live with myself. I'd be ashamed to be branded a coward."

"But Fosco – "

"Oh, by the way, Master," said Fosco cheerfully, in a very transparent attempt to change the subject, "why were you looking for me?"

Harry stared at Fosco for a full minute before he answered. Then he mentioned the Goblet of Light he saw in the court museum.

"You mean the Star of Eärendil?"

"Is it really?"

"What else can it be?" said the hobbit. Then he suddenly became pensive, thinking, then added. "But what is it doing in that room? I always thought it was placed in the throne room. But I haven't seen it there, ever since you woke up." Fosco turned a puzzled face up to Harry. "But why would the Princess have it moved?"

_Why, indeed_, Harry could only wonder himself.

~o~

Glossary:

_Man mathach – _How are you feeling?

_Ú-renech – _Do you not remember?

_Hiril __nîn – _My Lady

_Be iest lín, Hiril vuin – _As you wish, My Lady

_Dan lasto i beth __nîn__: I __caun__ fair – _But listen to my word: The Prince is Mortal


	7. Chapter 6

HARRY POTTER AND THE ELDER RACE

Chapter Six

A/N: can't write this fanfic w/o giving a nod to the LOTR films' great music. for this chap, it's evenstar. Hope ur listening to them while reading this fic. :)

also, I won't be able to write the archery scenes as well as one could watch in movies. pls share if u know of any. i can think of only one, aside from LOTR of course. It's the Korean film 'war of the arrows' – if u haven't seen it already. if u wanna see the bad guys looking as cool as, if not cooler than, the protagonists, that's the movie to watch.

**EVENSTAR LYRICS**

_**Ú i vethed nâ i onnad. **_

_**Si boe ú-dhanna. **_

_**Ae ú-esteli, esteliach nad.**_

This is not the end...it is the beginning.

You cannot falter now.

If you don't trust [this], trust nothing else.

_**Estelio han, estelio han, estelio, **_

_**estelio han, estelio veleth.**_

Trust this, trust this, trust,

Trust this, trust love.

~o~

Harry sat upon one knee, his bow fully drawn, trained down low. He placed the thumb of his right hand behind his neck, favoring the position at the moment for the slight increase in arrow speed it gave. He kept his target – a wild roe deer – in Elven-sight, and then silently cast a wandless spell on the arrow's head and shaft.

"Your prey won't stay still for long, Prince Aranhil," Haeldor said, standing behind him. They were at the top of a ridge overlooking the forest valley below, where Harry's target was, unaware of the impending danger. Harry kept his nerves steady, however, not even sparing the Elf-Captain half a glance, knowing Haeldor was baiting him to put him off his aim. He narrowed his right eye slightly as he concentrated on his target, a good three hundred yards away. He didn't know how he knew it, but Harry was sure Haeldor made some sort of signal, because a second later a bird call echoed in the distance, spooking the deer into flight. Harry had no choice but to loose his arrow at once. He waited for a beat before rising to his feet, his movements measured and sure, all the while keeping his eyes on the whistling arrow, following its trajectory as it zigzagged through the forest in pursuit of its prey. A second later, the arrow hit the target. The deer fell down and stayed still. Harry waited for Haeldor's inevitable comment but he only heard a quickly-smothered cough. Harry cast his laughing eyes down, though the smile that formed on his lips was spare.

Harry and Haeldor then ran down the ridge, both unmindful of the steep incline. Their feet moved lightly, barely touching the ground, but in places where they did, scree would roll down the earthen floor. Down the ridge the two Elven warriors ran, and then through the forest, Harry instinctively avoiding root outcrops, low hanging tree branches, and fallen tree trunks. They ran with the swiftness and grace of gazelles, until at last they reached Harry's prey.

They found it lying down, Harry's arrow standing erect on its side, with only the tip of its arrowhead touching the skin of the animal. It was as hard as fossilized stone, and yet its eyes were moving rapidly in fear – for Harry had merely struck it with a Petrifying spell; he had been careful not to hurt the deer.

Haeldor bent down and pulled the arrow from the deer's flank, but the animal remained frozen in its lying state so Harry nonverbally ended the spell. At once the deer bolted to its feet then sprinted as fast and as far away from them as it could. They watched it run and disappear back into the dim forest, Harry tracking it with his Elven sight long after it disappeared from view.

"You've grown in skill, Lord Aranhil_,_" Haeldor said after a time.

No merriment touched Harry's answering smile this time.

Haeldor looked closely into Harry's face. "What is wrong?"

"Nothing," Harry lied. And then he turned his face away, pretending to check the string of his bow. The truth was, he could feel it now, almost all the time. Whenever he used his Elven sight, he also could feel its presence – the darkness that was inside of him. It was lying quiescent for now. Harry doubted that such evil could breach Imraudden's wards.

Coming to this place was a real godsend. He now had Caladhiel, a family he could call his own. And he had acquired skills and knowledge he didn't think were possible or even existed. There was a certain precision to his magic now, a certain purity. He could now do, not only wandless spells, but do them nonverbally as well. But it all came with a terrible price: the knowledge of what was inside of him. It was Voldemort, that much Harry was certain. Caladhiel agreed as much. She had sensed it, too, the first time they had spoken. Something must have happened when Voldemort cast the Killing Curse upon him when he was a baby. Harry didn't wonder though at how such a thing could happen, now that he had learned of Sauron and his ring. Harry felt that he too had become some sort of a vessel, playing host to a Dark Lord's malice and ... power?

And yet, even though it was not a part of Harry, that it was completely separate from him, still, it was there. It made him feel dirty, impure, and undeserving of this place...and of Caladhiel.

Haeldor was quick to pick up on the prince's mood. "I know you'll be leaving this place soon," he began, thinking it was the reason for Harry's lowness of spirits. He spoke as well with a rare awkwardness, for Elves seldom were unsure of speech and manner. "- but you will always have this place as your home, Master Aranhil."

Harry kept his head down, pretending still that he was checking the bow string.

Haeldor suddenly felt uncertain: _how does one talk to a teenage Mortal? _"You rule this kingdom now," he soldiered on, determined to pierce through Harry's funk. "Not only do you have the Princess's love, but all of Imraudden's as well. You won't have to carry your burdens alone now."

Harry looked into Haeldor's calm, steady face, unlined despite his thousand and five hundred years. Though they didn't shake hands, Harry recognized the bound promise in the Royal Captain's words and was quietly grateful for it.

They realized that they had reached Imraudden's borders, very near where Harry first appeared, but still within the cover of the tree line. In the excitement of the chase they both had almost forgotten their surroundings but now the murmurings of the presently still waters of Edhelmere became loud whisperings in their ears, as if urgently reminding them both that Harry must needs return to the outside world.

And Harry heard them, heard them all too clearly.

Haeldor lifted his gaze towards the sky. "It is time that we should be coming back, Lord Aranhil," he said. "The Princess will be waiting."

Harry nodded and quietly followed after Haeldor.

And indeed Caladhiel was waiting for them at the entrance of the palace. But Harry was obviously dragging his feet, and it took them longer to reach her than they should have. Harry carefully avoided looking at Caladhiel's face, though he had nothing to hide from her. She knew as much as he did. Still, he couldn't look her in the eye. The truth was, he feared going back to his friends, to Sirius, knowing what he knew now. He wouldn't be able to look them in the eye, either.

Caladhiel was watching his face – more the top of his head, really, for Harry steadfastly refused to meet her gaze, preferring to scrutinize the marbled tiles of the floor. She exchanged a quick look with Haeldor, whose face remained immovable. He was leaving the decision to her. She stared at Harry's head for a long time. Harry thought he could discern a pattern in the grains of the marble.

"Aranhil, come with me," Caladhiel said after a while. An order, not a request.

Harry lifted his head, puzzled at the imperious tone in her voice. He followed after the Princess, through the palace's long corridors, then into the Great Hall, right into the Throne Room, and into what he could only describe as the Eldar's version of a _mathom_ room.

As before, the moment he stepped a foot into the door, radiant white light flooded the entire room. But Harry knew now where to look, and wondered if the Starlight was responding to his presence.

He only waited for a few seconds until his eyes adjusted to the bright light. Caladhiel was already heading straight to the Goblet of Eärendil's Starlight, Harry following just a few steps behind her.

They both stood there for a few moments, just staring into the Starlight, mesmerized by the dazzling display of light. In Harry's presence, this brilliant radiance was even more resplendent - as if at the end of every pinpoint of the shimmering starlight was a fiery core of the most perfect diamond. Its beauty filled Caladhiel's heart to brimming, knowing it was because of Aranhil, and she reached out her hand to touch the Goblet.

"How can such beauty cause so much grief?" she asked after a while, for it was true, for both the starlight's history and her nephew's. "And yet it is precious to us, the Eldar, for it is all that remains of the lost light of the Two Trees of Valinor. Yet now, at this moment, it is important to me for only one reason and one reason alone." Then she drew a deep breath as if steeling herself for something. She turned to Harry. "You know what this is?"

"Yes."

"You know you have power over it?"

Harry seriously did not know so he said nothing.

"You, born of mortals and yet an Elf, have the means to wield and magnify its power," said Caladhiel, speaking not as Harry's aunt, but with the authority of an Elven ruler.

Harry searched Caladhiel's eyes, asking silently if she thought it would remove the piece of Voldemort that was in him. She seemed to have understood his question, for she answered:

"The Star of Eärendil is a power of absolute good. Either it or ill will abide. They cannot exist both side by side, not when its power is fully harnessed. And that power is in you, Aranhil. But there is danger. Your body is still young and mortal. If you try to use it now, there is a chance that you may not be able to survive. But I've been trying to strengthen you, to waken the Elven in you. You don't have to make that choice now but know that you have a chance to remove this evil once and for all." She looked at him, and saw the fear and uncertainty in his face. She laid a gentle hand on his chest, where his heart was. "_Hebo sador, _Aranhil. I just found you. I will not lose you now."

Harry stayed in the room for a long time after that. Caladhiel let him, but left instructions that two Elven guards stay with him at all times. He sat on the floor, in the middle of the room, his back to one of the massive pillars in the room, elbows resting on his knees, eyes fixed on the Goblet. _Could he risk dying now at the chance to remove the piece of Voldemort in him_? He weighed the pros and cons of putting off doing so. He lived for fourteen years, since the night Voldemort killed his parents, without anything bad happening. He figured he still could live for years more. It was not without its uses, he thought, acting like a radio receiver sometimes. He wondered if he could use it to his advantage. But deep down inside he realized he'd rather not. He couldn't live with the idea of a part of Voldemort stuck in him, not for a single second more. But to risk dying now? It felt like he was running away from battle long before it had even started.

But how could he go on, knowing that he shared his mind, his body with Voldemort?

Minutes (hours? he couldn't tell, time was a different thing in this place) ticked by and still he stared at the Goblet. He stared at it until his eyes felt heavy and he fell asleep.

~o~

Voldemort stared at his long-fingered, white hands, the veins standing out lurid black. Yet he did not feel revulsion: all he felt was the power coursing through his veins. He imagined the very air tingling with it.

He looked up. He could see nothing of the dark night, or the dark waves lashing angrily at this remote island except what little the meager moonlight itself allowed to be seen. No matter; he did not come here to enjoy the view.

He thought back now, to the time he went to Albania searching for Rowena Ravenclaw's diadem. It was deep in the evening and he had taken rest on the banks of a mountain lake, upon whose still waters a shaft of moonlight glinted piercingly. And then he saw it. He thought it was merely a massing of clouds, hiding the moon's light. But no, it was more massive, and closer to earth, hiding from view even the black forms of the towering mountains that crowned the lake. And it was moving swiftly, towards him. He was too stunned – and not a little curious – to do anything. And if he were to admit it to himself, felt a little bit of fear. But he knew he couldn't die: he had already created his Horcruxes by then. So he just stood there, waiting, eying with detachment this massive shadow coming straight at him. And then it took him, utterly and completely. He did not feel fear, for the Shadow felt at once familiar. It seemed sentient and considered him for a time. Those who are weak would have named it evil, but he, Voldemort, the greatest wizard of all, recognized only power. They both recognized it in each other. (In truth, the Dark Shadow only recognized its own hunger for destruction in the Dark Wizard, but Voldemort, in his conceit, interpreted it as something else.) Finally, it left his body and then the Black Shadow disappeared whence it came.

Up to now Voldemort still wondered what it was, that Dark Shadow that took possession of him…and empowered him – for it must have passed something of itself to him. Even now he felt it, felt it more strongly, now that his body had been fully restored. He felt great power coursing through his blood. He was not afraid of anything now. The Dark Shadow had magnified his power and now no one lived who was more powerful than he. Not that meddling fool Dumbledore or that Potter boy. Still… how the Potter boy got away from him the night of his rebirthing….No, it must have been a fluke. Or something to do with that cursed prophecy….

Yet the power the Dark Shadow had given him remained. He would have wanted more. He wanted to have all, as much power as he could have. It was the reason why he returned to Albania, when he lost his body after his attack on the Potters. He scoured the entire land, but never found it again. He began to search all the dark places in the world, but only found a weak-willed wizard in Quirinus Quirrel.

But there was something else the Dark Shadow gave him – visions, images he could not understand. How to create servants that would bow down only to his will, servants that now would be extremely useful. He could hardly storm Hogwarts and the Ministry both with what remained of his Death Eaters. He needed an army.

He tried to remember what the Dark Shadow had shown him – mindless, vicious, man-like creatures and towering black demons with whips of fire. They were mere images, but he thought he had an idea how to summon these creatures to being. Tonight would be the first time he would try to create one.

Voldemort wielded his wand and three stones appeared several feet in front of him, the stones forming a triangle with each other. Another flick of his wand and a large stone cauldron, exactly like the one he had used for his own rebirthing, appeared on top of the three-stone hearth. A third flick of his wand and the stone cauldron gradually filled with a dark substance so viscous it looked like liquid mud. Then he lit a fast-blazing fire under the cauldron. The potion in the cauldron began to emit noxious fumes, like rotting eggs and stench of human decay combined.

The liquid mud potion started to boil, belching angry bubbles on its surface, and then the liquid began to spin furiously, forming a whirlpool in the center of the substance. It was time.

Voldemort lashed at the air with his wand, and human bones instantly appeared inches above the cauldron, spinning in tandem with the whirling dark potion beneath it. Then Voldemort shouted into the night._ "Bone of a Muggle, unknowingly given, you will return to life!" _With another wave of his wand, the skeletons dropped into the spinning potion, disappearing in its bowels.

Voldemort wielded his wand anew, and this time, a wild boar, bound and squealing, appeared suspended in the air. "_Flesh of the beast, forcibly taken, you will resurrect this body!" _Almost simultaneously_, _he removed the bindings of the animal and dropped it into the potion. It let out a blood-curdling scream as the heat and the potion consumed its body. He watched it writhe in the boiling potion with gleeful satisfaction and waited until it too disappeared under.

Then Voldemort brought his hand close to his mouth and blew into his palm, facing the cauldron. His fiery breath sped towards the cauldron, the potion whirling so fast now it began to suck in the fiery smoke into itself. And then Voldemort shouted once more into the night. "_Breath of the Master, willingly given, I will bring life to death!"_

The black potion began to boil more furiously, as Voldemort stoked the fires underneath it higher and higher until it had completely covered the entire cauldron. He began pacing around the cauldron, his strides long and pouncing, like a savage dance, unable to hide his excitement, the reflection of the fire shining redly upon his face. He could barely contain his exhilaration. It was the greatest feat of magic the wizarding world would ever know.

The waves of the seas lashed even more furiously against the island, as if in protest at the bastardization of creation he was committing, but Voldemort merely laughed derisively into the night waters.

And then slowly, as if the fire had run out of fuel, it began to die down. The smoke began to dissipate as well, as the potion began to spin slower and slower until it grew still. But only for a minute. For the potion began to stir again. Slowly a head emerged, soon to be followed by the rest of its body. A man-sized creature completely covered with the liquid slime then stood up from the cauldron and opened its eyes. Voldemort stared into his very first servant-creature: An Orc was born.

Voldemort walked around the cauldron, and with a lazy flick of his wand, vanished the tools he had used. Only the Orc remained, still completely covered in the liquid slime. Voldemort now spoke to it.

"You are just the first of many. Soon I will seed this planet with your kind. You will only do my bidding, for you exist only because of my will, and so shall obey only mine. And soon – very soon – the whole world will know the power of Lord Voldemort!"

The Orc grunted. Voldemort looked down and considered his wand. _Hhhmm._ The giants would come to his side with very little persuasion. The Dementors would answer his summons immediately. Yes, these creatures would become part of his new army. No force would be able to resist him. He tried to remember the other creatures he saw in his head – wargs, and that creature, a black demon, carrying a whip of fire. Could it have been a _fiendfyre_? No, in the vision he saw these fire-creatures were tangible, substantial beings. No, it was something else. It seemed they came from a long-forgotten age. But a few were still around.

He tried to remember the images he saw, of how to summon the fire-creature from the bowels of the earth. Somewhere from deep inside his subconscious, a word formed, as if someone was whispering to him. A _Balrog_. _Yes, that is its name. _He would summon these creatures back to the surface, to be part of his army...Voldemort halted. Red, hot anger was boiling from deep within his gut. Violent….And something else he could not fathom…. _Justified?_ He realized he had felt it moments before, while in the midst of creating his first servant: the same death grip in his magical core, but the feeling was subsumed by the exhilaration of his achievement.

Doubt began to assail him. Was he not supposed to do this? Voldemort's thoughts went back to the lake, to the Black Shadow that possessed him. He began to feel excruciating pain. Perhaps he was overreaching himself and he was being punished. The pain became blindingly intense, as if the Cruciatus Curse from a thousand wands were being simultaneously cast upon him. The Orc made a grunting noise, and despite the haze of pain, Voldemort saw the hunger in the newborn creature's eyes and felt himself vulnerable. He slashed his wand against the air forming a fiery X. The Orc scrabbled at its chest then dropped senseless to the ground. But the pain, the pain persisted. Voldemort staggered around, clutching at his head, clawing at his clothes, his vision deserting him. It felt that every fiber of his being was being set on fire. And, for the first time in his life, there rose in him the desire for death. But it was the thought, so new and alien to him, that made him realize: _it was not him_. It would be the last thought in his dwindling mind as, finally, the pain overtook him.

Hundreds of miles away, far away in a hidden realm, a blinding radiance burst the darkness of the night sky. The light – so intensely bright it must have been sublimated to its purest form – rapidly jetted out in all directions as fast as thunderbolts of lightning. Only once in the history of the Earth that such light had been seen, some sixteen years before. But before a single photon could escape the dome of Imraudden's wards and betray itself to Mortal eyes, the light fell rapidly back in upon itself, as if by sheer power of will, something had halted its expansion in a singular instant.

_~o~_

All throughout the day, since the break of dawn, Merinelle had been sitting in the North Tower keep, watching the skies. After that incident in the Treasury Room – the details of which she could not wrangle from her father no matter what she did – the Prince had resumed his intense training, this time on the Annwynian horses. Mortals had difficulty seeing these horses, flying so fast, light reflecting on their shiny coats, that men failed to realize what they were seeing even if one flew directly over their heads.

Up here was where she watched him, as he trained with the other Elven warriors in horseback archery. It was breathtaking the way the Prince rode his steed up in the sky. There was a certain grace and sureness in his movements, the way he twisted his flank as he shot an arrow backwards. Or the way he made the horse underneath him writhe in midair trying to avoid another Elf-mounted horse barreling into them. It was as if he was one with his steed.

But sadly she did not see him today. Her father must have taken the Prince to train back in the forest or gone patrolling the borders. So Merinelle went back into her family's living quarters, dejected, avoiding the Elven she met along the way. She spent the rest of the day hand sewing a linen undertunic for the Prince. It calmed her that she could do this for him. That her hands had touched almost every single article of clothing that he had been wearing since he set foot in Imraudden. The clothes he came in were so ruined that he could not use them anymore. Nonetheless, they felt rough to the touch, unlike the Elven clothes that she was glad to make for him.

There was a knock on the door. And she wondered who could it be. They had very few visitors, mostly her father's men. She opened the door and there standing was the Captain of the Royal Guard of Asgard, Princess Caladhiel's kingdom up north.

"Holberen!"

"Merinelle," said Holberen. He was young, compared to her father's age yet Holberen already had command of the entire Elven warriors of Asgard, with the golden hair and the beauty of their northern kindred.

"Since when have you arrived?" Merinelle asked, starting to worry. The Princess would not have called him here, her most trusted guard, for no reason. Holberen was one of the best warriors in the Elven realm.

"We departed from Asgard this morning." He scanned the back of the room as if searching for someone.

"Forgive me," said Merinelle at once. "Are you looking for my father? Why don't you come in and wait for him inside?"

"I'm sorry, Merinelle, but I and a few others will be departing soon for Prince Aranhil's school on the Annwynians. I thought I might talk to your father before I leave."

"For the Prince's school?"

"Yes." He frowned, considering Merinelle. "Did you not know? The Prince will be leaving tonight."

It could not be. The Prince would leave and she had never spoken to him once. But what else could she have done? There was never an opportunity for her to talk to him, not even to be in the same room as him, except for that one time when he came looking for the hobbit. The rules of decorum at the palace were quite rigid, the places where unmarried women and men could go, separate. To openly seek Prince Aranhil out would be unseemly and for a Palace Elf-maiden as she – no matter her father's place in the court – to initiate conversation with him simply was not done.

Merinelle did not know for how long she kept pacing the room until her father returned. But she couldn't go tearing off through the entire palace searching for him. He could be anywhere. He could be with the Prince. And what she needed to say were for her father's ears alone. And then the door to their quarters opened, and her father walked in, looking uncharacteristically sad as soon as he saw the expression on her face, knowing that she had heard the news.

"Why didn't you tell me?!" Merinelle rounded on him immediately.

"Because you would have forgotten yourself and sought him out."

"And what if I did?"

Haeldor looked sadly at his daughter. He knew that she loved the young prince, the way her face bloomed these days. It pierced his heart, the way her love shone brightly on her young face. But how could he tell his only child? Her love is the kind that rushes headlong to a precipice.

"Remember your place, child, if you have forgotten everything else," was all Haeldor could say in reply.

"I am not a child, _ada_!"

"But you are, my love. And I fear the swiftness with which you have fallen for the young prince."

"But you love him too, Father. I see it every day on your face. You are proud of him."

"But my love for him is different from yours child."

"Is it, _ada_?"

"Merinelle, you only think of your love for him, but cannot you see? Lord Aranhil faces burdens you cannot even begin to imagine."

"I just want him to know that I exist. And that I'll be there if he needs me. That's all I want, _ada_."

"When the time comes, when it is right, and if it's meant to be… he will find you."

But Merinelle would not be satisfied and rushed through the corridors of the Palace, carrying fresh beddings for the late King's and Queen's royal chambers in her arms. She realized that was where he would be now. She felt her father following her but she did not care anymore. She had no more time left.

~o~

Harry stared at his reflection in the giant mirror above the chimneypiece in his Elven parents' bedroom. When he first came into the room, he thought the mirror, like the bed and the other furniture in the room, was gilded in gold. But he soon discovered that it was only edged in wood, the wood chosen for its color and burnished so that it gleamed golden in the beam of sunlight – as it did now, even with the last rays of sunlight spilling into the room through the open doors of the balcony, the curtains billowing in the gentle breeze.

He drew a deep sigh. He came to this room often whenever he wanted some peace, for very few people were allowed in here. Not even Fosco dared to trespass against the privacy of this place.

He looked at his face now. He was different. The physical changes could be attributed to his growing body, but even he could tell there was more. He wondered if his friends and loved ones back home would see the enormous changes in him. And it wasn't just the clothes. Since coming to Imraudden he had grown a couple of inches taller. The clothes he was wearing when he arrived at Imraudden no longer fitted him either, and he had, in fact, been wearing nothing but traditional Elven garb since then. But he could hardly return to Hogwarts wearing Elvish clothes. So now he wore a plain white shirt and pants made from homespun fabric that Fosco's people had made especially for him.

A presence fluttered at the edge of his consciousness. Someone else was in the room besides him. He was not using his Elven-sight, but sometimes, something or someone would tug at his mind, demanding his attention. Often it was only Fosco, especially when the hobbit felt there was something he had to _urgently_ tell Harry. More often than not, the urgency was all in Fosco's mind. And Harry was finding it more and more necessary that he be able to control his Elven-senses, to use them only when he absolutely needed them, if only to have some peace of mind. So he ignored the presence. In any case, there were guards posted at the door of the room. And he would immediately know if it presented any danger to himself. It did not.

Instead, he picked up the crystal ball sitting on the chimneypiece. It was actually an Elven-toy, a ball of light. It made musical sounds whenever he moved it, the light inside breaking into a thousand colors with the movement, like diamond. Caladhiel told him that the late Queen had it made for him, a toy for her future child. Everywhere in the room, her eagerness for her coming child was evident, for the Elves had left the room just as it was the day the Queen left for the Hidden Forest. There was his crib. And there was the dresser filled with Elven-baby clothes. There were the other toys, mobiles and stuffed animals, a few even Muggle-made. Harry contemplated what it would have been like to grow up in this kingdom. He would be two different people, that was for certain. He would be solely James's and Lily's son. A wizard, but not an elf. He would be Aranhil, Ruellen's and Aeldred's son. An elf, but not a wizard.

When he surfaced from his musings, Harry realized that there was a new presence in the room. The earlier one had gone. He turned around. Haeldor was standing by the door.

"Princess Caladhiel is waiting for you, Aranhil," Haeldor said.

Harry returned the crystal ball back on the mantel and then turned towards the balcony doors. Haeldor joined him as he watched the sun began its slow death in the horizon.

"The Advanced guards had left for your school already, Lord Aranhil," said Haeldor after a time. "But as you requested, they would be keeping a low profile and would stay in the mountains surrounding your school. But if ever you have need of them, you can send word through any living creature in your school. They will hear your words."

Harry nodded. He knew this, the way Caladhiel's song reached him when he was a child. He turned his face back to the mountains of Imraudden, committing the sight to memory.

"Prince Aranhil, may I speak freely?" Haeldor broke into his thoughts. Harry turned his face to the Elf-Captain, waiting. "For a very long time, the Eldar have succeeded in keeping our existence hidden from Mortal eyes," Haeldor said. "That's the only way we could have survived all these centuries. Many of our kin have left these lands, driven by men and their war-mongering," he said, smiling bitterly to himself. He looked backed at Harry with imploring eyes. "I seek now your help, Master Aranhil. The Lady Caladhiel loves you. But her love has made her reckless, as those who love do – "

"I won't do anything that would put Caladhiel or this land in danger," said Harry at once.

"Do not get me wrong, _Hîr nín_. You have your people now. And we will do everything for you, to protect you. We will never abandon you and would gladly give up our lives for you, including my own."

Harry was about to protest, but Haeldor held a hand up.

"I will do it, Master Aranhil. Many times over. And not because I was tasked to protect you. But it is to war and battle that you will be heading. I ask only that you keep secret from the enemy your most valuable weapon as long as you can. Keep the knowledge of our existence close to your heart."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bring so much danger to Imraudden," Harry said, feeling rotten.

"Do not feel guilty, Lord Aranhil. Doom is upon us all. For long we have known that it is coming – you have not brought it here. Let not your heart be troubled. Because of you, we know that we are not without hope."

"I don't know about that. I may be an Elf inside, but I'm still just a kid."

Haeldor smiled. "You underestimate yourself, Master Aranhil. No mere 'kid' could have turned an Elven battle sword to dust, as doubtless the hobbit would have told you." The latter Harry was sure Haeldor said in jest, but his mood was far from lightened.

Down below, lights started to flicker. The Elven guard that would take Harry back to the Mortal world had started to form, carrying torchlights. The lights started to pool under the balcony, waiting for Harry.

Harry gave the room one last glance, saying his goodbye, but knowing as well that this would not be the last time he would see this room.

The Elven procession moved silently through the forest, Harry in the middle of it, with Fosco glumly walking by his side. Harry carried nothing on his person but his wand and a new Elven cloak, made especially for him, tucking the green cloak inside his Wizard's robes.

Harry glanced down at the hobbit, walking in step beside him, still looking dejected. But Harry simply could not bring Fosco with him back to Hogwarts. He would be spending most of his time inside the castle while the school term was in session. Even if Fosco were to constantly wear an Invisibility Cloak, there was too much of a risk that he would be eventually discovered – which would then lead to the knowledge that Elves still existed.

"Fosco…" Harry began, though he hardly knew what to say. Both Caladhiel and Haeldor had set their feet down: except for Holberen and his men, Harry would return to the Mortal world alone.

"I know, Master Aranhil, you don't have to say anything. I know I can't come with you – now," said Fosco, glancing up at Harry at the qualifier. "But I sure am following behind you. As soon as the Elven scouts return from your school with news of your arrival, new Elf-warriors will be sent to guard you. And then I can join them," he vowed.

Harry looked down, certain Fosco would do it too. He wondered how it would work out. Maybe Fosco could join Sirius in his mountain caves. Fosco had proven quite adept in hunting for food. He wouldn't be hungry. Still, Harry didn't know what situation he would come back to in the Mortal world. He'd heard Caladhiel and Haeldor discussing ways to spirit him back to Imraudden if Harry's Elven guards deemed the situation demanded it.

They kept on walking, and as they neared the border, the Elves started to put out the firelights one by one. Only the slender shafts of moonlight filtering through the canopy of trees lighted their way now, Harry in the full shadows of his thoughts.

Soon they reached Imraudden's borders, arriving in the very same spot where Harry first appeared. Caladhiel was already there, waiting by the banks of the river, talking to Haeldor – who had gone on ahead – and several other Elven warriors. Harry joined them, but they did not speak. Caladhiel and Haeldor seemed to be waiting for something.

An arrow suddenly landed at their feet.

"That is the signal," said Haeldor. "Mortals are about, not far from here. Our people wouldn't have been able to get near enough to see whether these are magicless folks or wizards. But we cannot risk it. It's best for the Prince to depart from here."

Caladhiel nodded.

Haeldor then handed to Harry the Portkey covered in brown cloth. "We were assured that the magic would activate the moment you touch it with your bare skin." Then he offered his hand to Harry. "_Na lû ir a-goveninc,__" _the Elf-Captain said_. _They shook hands firmly. "Your school is not far from here, Prince Aranhil. Holberen would be reaching your school by now."

Harry nodded, familiar with the speed of the Annwynians.

Haeldor then stepped further back, allowing Caladhiel to speak with Harry a little more privately.

"Will you let the hobbit stay at the palace?" Harry asked Caladhiel.

Caladhiel smiled. "I was planning to even before you asked. We also need to keep an eye on him lest he decides to come haring after you."

"Thanks."

Then she lifted her arms to remove the necklace which Harry had only seen her wearing now. Its slender pendant hang on a chain of mithril and was made of a cluster of gems that shone like the stars**. **She then offered the necklace up to Harry who bent his head forward so she could place it around his neck. Once done, she stepped back, regarding the necklace on him. Harry fingered the gem, which instantly shone at his touch.

"It is the Evenstar, that once belonged to Aragorn," she said then gazed up at him. "It is yours by birthright. Take it with you and trust in the knowledge of who you are."

Another arrow landed at their feet, this time, with two-colored feathers. It was the all clear.

"Lady Caladhiel, it's time," Haeldor said.

Caladhiel turned to Harry. "I am sorry, that you have to carry this burden on your shoulders. But know this: You are not alone anymore. The entire Elven kingdom, not just Imraudden but my home up north as well, is behind you. We have lost you once, Aranhil. We – I – won't lose you now."

Then music began to play in the distance, the soothing Elven voices drifting back to Harry. His new senses allowed him to hear and understand the Elven words clearly. He turned his head back to the lands of Imraudden to listen.

_Trust this._

Harry scanned the lands of Imraudden, framed against its misty background, taking in the green, the earthy scent of untouched forest, saying his silent farewell, wondering when he would come back again.

_Trust love._

He turned his gaze back to Caladhiel.

"_Ú i vethed nâ i onnad_," she said, echoing the words of the music, lightly touching his cheek with a finger._ "__Si boe ú-dhannam, Aranhil.__ Estelio veleth nîn_."

Harry gave her a small sad smile. "_I muinthel en naneth nîn_," he said, speaking tenderly. It was the sole term of endearment he could call her, for there was no Elvish word for 'aunt'. It was his thank you… and his goodbye. A single tear fell down the Lady Caladhiel's beautiful face; Harry wiped it with the pad of his thumb. He then turned to the Portkey in his hands, removed the cloth covering revealing a car wheel, and took firm hold of it. As the Portkey began to glow its blue light, Harry lifted his head to gaze one last time into Caladhiel's blue eyes. "_Ni ithron a ni edhel," _he said quietly as he let the Portkey's magic bear him back to the Mortal world.

~o~

Glossary:

_Hebo sador_ - Have faith

_Ada_ – father

_Na lû ir a-goveninc_ – Until we meet again.

_Ú i vethed nâ i onnad_**.**_Si boe ú-dhanna. __– _This is not the end...it is the beginning. You cannot falter now. (from the LOTR song Evenstar, of course.)

_Estelio veleth nîn – _Trust my love_._

_I muinthel en naneth nîn_ – My mother's sister

_Ni ithron a ni edhel. – _I am (a) wizard and I am an Elf.

**A/N: **

Sorry for the delay. I purposely left out the talk about the horcrux between caladhiel and harry coz I felt that I'll just be saying something that's already known to everyone.

Also, hate to put this here instead of within the story, coz it means I'm failing as a writer, lol, but really can't see how. Anyhoo, even with the additional power the Dark Shadow gave Voldemort, Harry was already powerful himself when the killing curse hit him as a baby. So there's protection there already. And the dark shadow did not fuse with voldy's soul either, I don't think it's possible (rather, I'm not making it possible. Keke. ;D). So the horcrux in harry is still just a piece of Voldy's soul. DS only magnified the evil in voldemort, as well as gave ol' snake-eyes additional power.


	8. Chapter 7

Harry Potter and the Elder Race

Chapter 07

Disclaimer: keep forgetting to put this in. harry potter and lord of the rings belong to their respective copyright owners.

As soon as Harry's finger touched the Portkey and the spell activated, he knew something had gone horribly wrong. The Portkey began to heat up and vibrate. It became so hot it nearly burned his fingers. Harry wanted to let go, but could not. The Portkey burned through his flesh, as it took him further and further from Imraudden, until finally it exploded and black oblivion took control of him….

There were few things that disturbed the Centaurs in the Forbidden Forest. It had been, and always would, remain their domain, their fortress. Thus they guarded their home fiercely, especially this night of all nights, when the stars had foretold of a rare alignment: of the Sun with the planets Earth and Venus. That such an alignment should occur at this time of year when the brightest stars of the Milky Way Galaxy marched behind the Summer Triangle – a star pattern, an asterism, that bore another asterism at its heart: the Cross of Calvary. For sometime now the Centaurs had been on edge, for even they did not know what so portentous a heavenly formation signified. So with a great clattering of hooves, a great number of them charged into the clearing where the strange flash of light broke the dark sleep of the night. Upon seeing the human, all immediately drew and pointed their arrows at it. The fierce, red-haired Centaur Bane began circling around the body with much pawing and rearing of hooves. The human was lying prone on the ground, and Bane could only see one side of the human's face.

"It's the Potter boy!" he exclaimed.

Firenze started at the name. The boy had been missing for two months now. He rushed forward to confirm to himself that it was and saw Bane carelessly turning Harry over on his back with a hoof.

"Wait," said Firenze. "Can you not see that he is injured?"

Bane looked at Firenze with contempt. "You and your love for the humans!" he spat.

"This is no simple matter, Bane. You've read the stars. I believe, as many of our kind do, that it is the Potter boy that is foretold in the heavens, the one who would play a pivotal role in the coming war."

"So what if he is? It has nothing to do with us!"

"It hasn't? Or have your mind and vision become so clouded that you do not readily see that which is written so plainly in the stars?! A war is coming, and as sure as the sun wakes up every dawn, our fate is irrevocably bound in its outcome."

Bane's face hardened, but neither could he directly contradict Firenze, for wasn't it the reason why they were all here? They knew something would happen tonight. "Then let us dump the boy by Hagrid's cabin and be done with it!" he said. "Let his own kind take care of him!"

But Firenze ignored him. He was already approaching Harry. He knelt down on one knee as soon as he reached him and watched anxiously the slow rise and fall of Harry's chest. And then he saw it, the necklace Caladhiel had given Harry. He picked up the pendant and brought it closer to his face, studying it. "I know this stone," he murmured to himself. He looked around at his brothers, his voice louder. "This is no ordinary jewel. This bears the symbol of the Eldar!"

His declaration met astonishment and incredulity. The Eldar!

"The lies that come from your mouth, Firenze!" shouted Bane angrily. "The Eldar have not been seen for ages! How dare you utter such profanity! They have long deserted this planet!"

"Have they? Or have you forgotten the last war in the Muggle world – how the Muggles of this small country withstood the assaults from across the sea? Did we not ourselves believe that the Eldar intervened to protect this land?"

"Bah! Their science and their grit saved the Muggles – not long dead beings straight out of old songs and fairy tales!"

"How then would you explain this token of the Elves?" said Firenze. "Look!" he said, lifting the pendant so that Bane and the other Centaurs could see.

Despite himself, Bane's eyes were drawn to the necklace. The white jewel seemed to capture every photon of light shining into the clearing so that the stone brilliantly glowed in the dark. Bane stiffened, and shook his mane of red hair in defiance. "Who knows? Perhaps the boy bought it or had it especially made," said Bane, trying to be dismissive.

"But who now has the knowledge to fashion this jewel?"

"There are many books in the castle," said Bane, though even in his own ears his statement sounded false.

"But not about the Eldar. You know the tales of old, Bane." Firenze's eyes glittered. "I know of only one Elven jewel that fits the description of this necklace, the Evenstar that once belonged to King Elessar, Aragorn, son of Arathorn."

"But that is merely legend, Firenze," interjected Ronan. "Nothing more than a ballad."

Firenze turned to the other Centaurs, trying to appeal to them. "Do you not understand what is happening? This Potter boy has a token not seen in the Mortal world for tens of thousands of years! Not readily do the Eldar part with their treasure!"

Bane reared on his hind legs and came back down with great force. "What if he merely stole it?" he said. "You do not know the whole story behind it, Firenze."

Firenze's clear, blue eyes glinted in the dark. "The day has not yet come when a man, wizard or not, could steal from the Elves. No, this was most certainly a gift, a princely one at that. That the Potter boy was accorded this, the highest of the Eldar's honor, is of no small matter."

The other Centaurs stomped their hooves nervously upon the ground. They are proud beings and recognize no other race higher than their own. But the Elder Race was different. The Centaurs knew that long before the coming of Men, before even they began roaming the lands, the Eldar already had dominion over the planet. The Eldar were the creators of languages and the protectors of the human race, and indeed of all races, including the Centauri. And perhaps they had even given the Centaurs their ability to speak, as they had done with the ents and the early Mortals. The Centaurs had witnessed the Eldar fight in battles not of their own making, nor for the pursuit of their own selfish ends. It was also the Eldar who taught them the skill of archery and the art of divining the heavens, gifts they treasured highly. But more than that, it was the Eldar who saved them. Every Centaur knew the lore well: Their kind was about to perish. Wargs and orcs were ravaging the land, eating what flesh they could find – men, animals… and Centaurs. But the ending of the War of the Rings brought relief to the Centaurian race, allowing them to recover, and so they grew in strength and numbers. The Eldar had given their mantle of protection to them, a debt the Centauri acknowledged even to this day.

"Look up, Bane," said Firenze quietly, and he glanced towards the sky with his blue eyes. "Venus passes before the face of the Sun tonight. A bridge has been formed between the heavens and the planet Earth."

The forest resounded with the silence that soon followed this statement.

"The Headmaster must be told," Ronan, a black-haired Centaur, spoke into the strained silence. "I will fetch him."

The other Centaurs turned to Bane, waiting. Bane's red-haired tail swished back and forth. At length, he turned to Ronan and said: "I will come with you."

"The boy will not be hurt," Firenze's voice rang like the clanging of a drawn sword in the dark forest. Bane merely replied with a piercing glance.

"What about the necklace?" another Centaur said.

"It is not our confidence to reveal to anyone," said Firenze. He turned to Ronan and Bane. "Let no other men know," he said.

"You insult me with your doubts," Bane said and then turned and galloped away, crashing through the trees noisily, Ronan following closely behind him. Several other Centauri peeled off from the group as well, cantering after the two Centaurs while Firenze and the others that remained formed a circle of protection around Harry.

Dumbledore sat on his desk, his hands steepled in thought. It had been a long day, yet still he could not sleep. Charlie Weasley had just sent word that the Romanian Ministry of Magic was about to release an order to all its MLE officers to find and arrest Harry Potter. It was a backdoor, unofficial request from the Death Eaters. The Trace was not turning up results in Britain. Now the search for Harry had gone abroad. Charlie's contacts, however, had been sitting upon the request. But it would not be long before the order became official and executory.

A dull, plinking sound hit the glass window behind him. Dumbledore turned his head and stood up quickly, and rushed to open the windows. He could see nothing, but as he leaned forward partway out the window, he could just glimpse in the meager moonlight a single arrow falling down into the dark grounds below.

Dumbledore looked up, straining his eyes to see towards the edge of the Forbidden Forest. He could not see clearly this far away but he thought he detected movement. And then out of the dark of the trees, a Centaur emerged into the open, its face turned up towards him.

It was rare for the Centaurs to summon him. Rarer still were the instances when the Centaurs would summon him so. Usually, whenever they wanted to speak with him, they would just send word through Hagrid. Something must have happened.

Dumbledore quickly closed the window shut, and headed towards the door. He left his office Disillusioned and hurried through the hallways and the corridors of the dark castle, unseen by every house-elf, every ghost, every portrait. Then he set out into the night. He avoided the area near Hagrid's hut, as the dog Fang might feel his presence and bay its excitement.

At the mouth of the forest, he removed the Disillusionment Charm he had cast upon himself. With a deep breath, he entered the dark and gloomy forest. He had not taken but a few steps when a voice spoke out from the darkness: "Here, Headmaster."

Dumbledore obeyed the voice, following after the centaur whom he recognized as Bane. Dumbledore suspected there were others, keeping abreast of them, but keeping their distance enough not to be readily seen. Deeper and deeper into the forest the centaur led him, until the trees grew denser and the roots under him so entangled it became a struggle to find his footing. They went so deep that not even moonlight could penetrate the darkness of the trees. Dumbledore had no time to decipher from Bane's expression why they had summoned him, and so he could not ascertain what mood the Centaurs were in. If there was danger of some kind, they would be very tense and lighting his wand would anger them. Dumbledore thus found himself stumbling over his feet, and often had to lean a hand against a tree, to buttress himself against his unstable footing.

"You can make a small light if you want, Headmaster," a Centaur's voice said kindly from the darkness.

Grateful, Dumbledore cast a Lumos charm, but kept the wand pointed down to prevent unfriendly eyes from seeing the light. Soon the trees began to thin and Dumbledore saw a gap in the trees up ahead. Moonlight filtered into this clearing, and there were shadows moving in between the trees – more centaurs, crowded around something he could not see. Bane led Dumbledore into this circle, and the centaurs stood aside to let him through.

A body lay on the forest floor. A man. Dumbledore approached carefully. He could only see a part of the man's face. The man had black hair… black, unruly hair. For one foolish second he thought it was James Potter. But no, it had to be Harry, but the boy looked taller than Dumbledore had last seen him. His heart was in his throat as he stepped nearer the body.

Dumbledore knelt down and checked Harry's vital signs. He was alive but had angry, bleeding wounds. Dumbledore looked up at the Centaurs standing around him. "How did he come to be here?" he asked.

"We do not know, Headmaster, but we found this." Firenze showed him the wheel.

Dumbledore waved his wand over it, and learned it was a one-way Portkey. He took the wheel, disappointed that he could not know where it originated. He wondered how Harry could have gotten hold of it. Did Harry already know how to make one? But how? It was advanced magic, something not taught at Hogwarts. He glanced down at the young boy. There would be time for questions later. "I need to bring him to the castle," he told the group.

Then he Conjured a stretcher out of thin air. With another wave of his wand, he gently lifted Harry into the stretcher. He turned to the Centaurs and said: "Thank you."

Firenze, who stood nearest him, nodded. "Your Ministry is still looking for him?" he asked.

"Yes," said Dumbledore. "Unfortunately."

In the moonlight, Dumbledore could now see the faces of the other Centaurs more clearly. He especially watched for Bane's expression, but detected no anger in the fierce Centaur. Although Dumbledore thought it odd, he had no time to ponder the matter at the moment. He waved his wand a third time, and conducted Harry out of there. To his surprise, the centaurs began to follow, positioning themselves in front and around him and Harry, providing a curtain from spying eyes. Like a procession of guards, Dumbledore thought. The trek back to the castle's main grounds was easier, aided by his light. And, he was sure, this time the centaurs picked an easier trail for him to negotiate.

At length they reached the mouth of the forest. Here Dumbledore encountered a new dilemma. He debated whether to Disillusion Harry as well, but how could he in Harry's injured state? Using the Deluminator would draw the attention of Hagrid and Argus, who were the only Hogwarts staff remaining in the castle. He wished he had kept Harry's Invisibility Cloak, but it was sent back to Sirius, along with Harry's other belongings. He did not imagine he would have need of it, and trusted only that Sirius knew its value. "Cēlāre Inimicum!" he whispered, a hand on Harry's stretcher. The air around Harry shimmered and soon the boy and the stretcher began to disappear under the camouflaging spell. It was the most he could do under the circumstances. He sent a Patronus to Madam Pomfrey to come quickly and quietly to Hogwarts, taking the emergency Floo Network into the Hospital Wing. Then he turned to the Centaurs and thanked them again. He could just glimpse the other centaurs standing deeper in the trees. Then still grabbing hold of Harry, Dumbledore Disillusioned himself again, and walked back to the castle with Harry. And though he felt the Centaurs did not leave when he and Harry disappeared into thin air, he did not look back.

When they arrived at the Hospital Wing, Dumbledore found Pomfrey already waiting. He'd already instructed her some weeks back to be prepared to come to Hogwarts at a moment's notice, that she might be needed when they finally found Harry. She did not disappoint. "Thank you, for coming so soon," said Dumbledore.

"It's nothing, Headmaster. But what happened?"

Only then did Dumbledore remove the Concealment spell around Harry. Then he gently lifted the boy into one of the beds.

"Oh my God! It's Potter!" Madam Pomfrey rushed to Harry's side and began running her wand over him, as well as physically checking his wounds.

"He doesn't seem to have any internal injuries. And here, see this?" she said, showing Dumbledore Harry's burned hands. "It must be from a backfiring Portkey spell. I only see these types of injuries if the wizard who created the Portkey is not particularly skilled."

"Why is he unconscious?"

"That would be from the slight concussion he would have suffered from the temporal and spatial displacement that occur in these cases, Headmaster. It happens often enough." She looked up at the worried face of Dumbledore. "Don't worry, Headmaster. It's not life-threatening. I'll have Potter good and in a trice," she said.

"Thank you," said Dumbledore.

After Madam Pomfrey treated Harry's wounds, she and Dumbledore removed Harry's outer garments, Pomfrey handing over to him a rich emerald cloak from inside Harry's robes. The Headmaster set it aside on the table near Harry's bed. They placed the rest of Harry's belongings with the cloak. Dumbledore then helped Poppy ease Harry into hospital wear and settle him more comfortably on the bed, Pomfrey gently tucking in the bedsheet around Harry more snugly.

"There. You'll be fine now," she told the sleeping Harry. She turned back to Dumbledore. "It'll be hours before he wakes up again, Headmaster," she said. "But I would need to get back home to get a few things. Would it be alright if I leave for a while?" she asked.

"You may go," said Dumbledore. "I will stay here and watch over him."

"Thank you, Headmaster."

Dumbledore nodded but then he fixed the nurse with a stare. "Forgive me, Poppy, but I have to ask. It is as much for your protection as Harry's. But I cannot emphasize the need for secrecy. The Ministry –"

"You need not say it, Professor. I understand."

And so Madam Pomfrey went to her office to take the Floo back to her home. As soon as she was gone, Dumbledore conjured a chair and sat beside Harry. He would stay by the boy's side until the latter woke up. With nothing to do, Dumbledore let his eyes settle on the necklace on Harry's chest, which they hadn't removed. He picked the pendant up, noticing the exquisite craftsmanship. Even with his untrained eye, Dumbledore could see that it was a very expensive jewel. He did not remember Lily or James ever wearing this necklace. He certainly did not see it the night the Potters were murdered. He had gone there looking for Voldemort's wand, which surprisingly had disappeared. And if he were honest with himself, he would admit that he was also keeping an eye out for the third Hallow, the Resurrection Stone. Ostensibly, though, he was watching over the Ministry as they went through the Potters' house looking for evidence, and to see if any of the Potters' possessions could be scavenged, doing it for the boy's sake. Anything of value the Ministry had deposited into the Potters' Gringotts vault, which Dumbledore too had overseen. He hadn't seen this necklace in the vault, either.

So where did Harry get it?

And where could Harry had gotten the emerald cloak? Dumbledore reached out his hand to touch the fabric. He had kept the Invisibility Cloak in his keeping for years and studied it greatly. Yes. It was the same fabric, the same quality as the Peverell cloak. But the two could not be related, could it?

And where did Harry get the wheel Portkey? Somebody must have helped him, Someone so powerful he could hide and override the Trace on Harry. So who?

He looked back at Harry's sleeping form, his mind riddled with questions, yet at the same time, he was afraid of what answer the boy might give him. Yet the question nagged at him: _Where have you been, Harry?_

The presence woke him. Harry felt it first even before he fully gained awareness. A powerful magical person. It wasn't dark, that he could tell. And he knew of only one wizard who would have such a strong magical signature – Dumbledore. But Harry didn't open his eyes as yet. Like his Elven kin, he had learned to study his surroundings first before making a move. In his nose was the various smell of the hospital wing, which he was annoyed to realize he had grown familiar with. Then he sensed the presence of another person nearby, who could not be any other but Madam Pomfrey.

Then he felt the Hogwarts nurse come out of her office. Next thing he knew, she was lifting one of his eyelids, and pointing the lighted end of her wand into his eye. Harry only had enough time to brace himself against the lucent assault, pretending that he still hadn't woken up yet. But his eyes opened long enough for him to see that there was no visible Dumbledore sitting beside him where there ought to have been.

"Ginny! Ginny! Wake up!"

Someone sure has a death wish, Ginny thought.

"Ginny, sweetheart, wake up!"

"Whaaat?!" Ginny said grumpily. She turned her back to the idiot who was trying to wake her up and pulled a pillow over her head to drown its voice. Without having to look, she could just feel that it was still dark outside. There was no goodly reason for her to be awake long before the sun woke up.

"Ginny, you have to wake up! We need to leave at once!"

Ginny sat bolt upright as if drenched with ice-cold water. The situation had been so uncertain in the last several weeks, the fear that war could break out at any moment, that all sleepiness deserted her body. She removed the pillow from her head and saw her mum's face bent over her. "Mum? What's happened?"

"Get your things ready, sweetheart. We leave in fifteen minutes," her mum merely said in reply. And then Mrs. Weasley turned around and left the room without further explanation.

Ginny jumped to her feet, ran to her closet, and pulled out the few remaining things still left in there – like her favorite houseclothes. Bill had already told her weeks earlier to pack her bags. Thinking the worst, Ginny had packed almost every possession she owned into her backpack that Bill had already enlarged with an Extendable Charm. Unlike her mum, who continued to shield her, Ron, and the twins from the unpleasant events happening outside, Bill, on the other hand, had a different take on things. He wanted Ginny and the rest of the family prepared for whatever was out there. Thus, almost every evening, he would drill her, Ron, and the twins on defensive magic using dummy wands.

Since she already made it a habit of showering every night before going to sleep, she only needed to wash her face, brush her teeth, and change into street clothes and in no time flat she had joined her parents, Bill, and Percy in the kitchen downstairs. Unsurprisingly, Ron was the last to come down, still sporting a caked trail of saliva down his cheek. Nobody thought of making fun of him, however. Ginny and the twins were too busy worrying why they were leaving the Burrow in the dead of night. She glanced at her parents and Bill, watching for clues, but their faces were unreadable.

Then her dad held out a wooden chopping board, the one with the talking chicken head handle that dictated to you the recipes you could cook based on the ingredients you had placed on it. Because you couldn't possibly chop water, the recipe almost always turned out to be grilled vegetables. Ginny hated it and always wished her mum would throw it away.

"Everyone!" Mr. Weasley prompted and they all gathered around him. Then they all placed a finger on the Portkey.

Just as the chopping board started to glow, however, Ginny felt Bill's eyes upon her. She returned his gaze, an eyebrow raised. But he merely gave her the tiniest of winks.

"Three-two-one…" her dad was saying.

Ginny felt the pull behind her navel and seconds later, she and the rest of the Weasleys found themselves in the kitchen of a dark, old, grimy place.

Half an hour after Harry had woken up, Dumbledore quietly left the room. It puzzled Harry that Dumbledore did not show himself to him. On the other hand, he was relieved in a way. He didn't know what he thought now of the Headmaster, whom he used to trust and believed in more than anyone. But now that he knew about the piece of Voldemort that used to be inside of him, Harry wasn't sure how he felt now about the school Headmaster. Caladhiel knew it was there, and it didn't take her long to talk to him about it.

Harry was sitting on the bed. Except for his hands, which were still bandaged up, he actually felt fine, though he could have done without Sirius almost suffocating him with his bear hug, barging into the room that sent Madam Pomfrey clucking in protest. Dumbledore had already brought her into the secret of Padfoot's real identity. She would have to be, the Order expecting the worst when they finally found Harry.

Remus was more composed, but drew his breath deeply as he embraced Harry, his hold quite firm. His father's friends arrived just before dawn. And when Sirius and Remus asked Harry where he had been, he gave them the answer Caladhiel and Haeldor decided upon: He did not remember. Luckily, they readily believed him, simply glad that he was alive and back.

"What about Cedric?" Harry asked after a while.

Remus and Sirius exchanged an uncertain glance.

"You were successful in getting Cedric's body back to Hogwarts... " Remus began tentatively.

"But?" said Harry, because he could just feel one in there.

"You have to understand, Harry, when you went missing, people started speculating as to why. A rumor soon spread that you killed Cedric, that's why you took off. "

"I didn't kill Cedric, " said Harry with quiet vehemence.

"We know, Harry. We believe you," said Sirius. "But some people insist that you did – Malfoy's crowd most likely. And it would seem Amos Diggory chose to believe in those rumors, even though he knows that as a minor, you couldn't have done it. Then somehow word leaked out that you can cast a real Patronus -"

"So?"

"It's unusual magic, Harry," said Remus. "Not someone of your age can easily do. Even grown wizards have difficulty casting one."

"But it was you who taught me how to cast one! "

"A werewolf?" said Remus with a humorless smile. "You must know Harry that my kind is not especially trusted by the public."

"So, are you telling me that everybody thinks I killed Cedric?"

"Frankly, people don't know what to believe anymore. We keep hearing all these stories. They think you've joined Sirius. "

"But of course, we at the Order know that you didn't. Sirius has been just as worried sick about you as any of us. I thought he was going to go bald by all that hair pulling he's been doing."

"The Order? "

Remus told Harry what it was and who were the members.

"...Two Aurors. And the real Mad-Eye Moody —"

"The real Mad-Eye? "

"The one you knew, the one who has been teaching you, was a fake. He's actually a Death Eater named Barty Crouch, Jr. He was the one who turned the Triwizard Cup into a Portkey."

"Bartemius Crouch's son? I thought he died in Azkaban. "

"You and everybody else. "

"Crouch is very intelligent. Intelligent _and_ cruel. For Voldemort to have someone like him in his service ..." said Sirius.

"So now he's joined his Master, which is another worry for Dumbledore. "

"But at least we knew that you're still alive," said Sirius. "Dumbledore was quite certain of that."

"Really?" Harry said, frowning. "But how would he know?"

"That you would have to ask him yourself. He wouldn't explain it fully."

"But people must realize that Voldemort is back?"

"Dumbledore said as much, during the end of year feast. But how are we going to convince people? The only witness that he is back who is not a Death Eater went missing," said Sirius.

"It's hard trying to convince people," said Remus. "Fudge refuses to hear any such suggestion. But he could hardly deny that something's up. The Death Eaters have become so brazen. They don't seem to bother hiding their activities."

"What have they been doing?"

"Making sport of Muggles, mostly. Numerous reports of Muggles disappearing, developing strange highly disfiguring illnesses. And then there were reports of giants returning to Britain — and not just one or two— but what few remaining giants are there in the Karakoram mountain ranges in Tibet."

"And then there are the highly destructive environmental disasters that Muggles think are caused by nature but aren't."

"Dumbledore's been very worried. Voldemort is not acting the way he expected. Voldemort doesn't seem to care whether people know that he's back or not."

"Some members of the Order have also noticed that they are being followed, our houses constantly watched."

"The Weasleys?" Harry said, a bit fearfully, though he already knew about it. But the newspaper the Elven scouts picked up were a few weeks old.

"They're fine," said Sirius. "Nothing has happened to them ..._yet_. But we think that it will not be long now and Voldemort will start moving against us. "But Dumbledore says that as long as we have you, then we don't have to worry about anything."

"Sirius!" said Remus in a warning tone.

Sirius ignored him. "I don't know what Dumbledore is so worried about. What, does he think Harry's going to Voldemort and turn traitor? "

"Sirius," warned Remus again.

Sirius rolled his eyes and turned to Harry. "Dumbledore warned us against letting you know more than what you need."

Harry did not react, fearing he might already know the reason why.

And then the daylight brought in more of Harry's loved ones. He sat in his hospital bed, mouth twitching. Hermione and the Weasleys were crowded at his feet, but instead of the happy reunion he had expected to happen, they all were looking at him as if he were some kind of dangerous animal. He guessed they were shocked to find him looking so healthy. In a way, he felt sorry for them, imagining the anxiety they had been going through in the last couple of months – though to him it felt that he had been gone for years. But he was just actually happy to see them. He was extremely delighted to be surrounded by his loved ones.

Dumbledore must have spoken to them because none of them directly asked him where he had been or what had happened to him. And he was grateful for that, he didn't really know what to say to them. He would have to lie outright and he didn't want to do so with these people who looked so relieved that he was alive.

The twins were the first to recover.

"Blimey, Harry!" said George? Fred? – he never could tell. "We have been worrying about you! And here you are looking as if you've just come from a vacation or something."

"Wow, the girls are surely going to fall all over themselves running after you now."

"Yeah. You're not as specky as you once looked."

Harry laughing at the two seemed to break the ice. The rest of the Weasleys visibly relaxed, and Hermione sat by his leg at the foot of the bed.

Ginny stood just slightly behind her dad, hoping that her eyes did not betray what she was feeling. There Harry was, lying in his bed. He did look different – healthier, and even sitting down on the bed, looked a bit taller. Certainly taller than when she saw him last. Physically he was not much different. It was something else, a certain aura Harry exuded, for what he had supposedly been through, he certainly looked a lot calmer.

She couldn't put a finger on it. Something happened to him in the last couple of months since his disappearance. There was a certain deliberation in every movement he made, a certain sureness . Somehow it felt to her he was even more unreachable than ever before. And then it suddenly occurred to her, Was this even the real Harry? and before she could even stop herself, her mouth ran off on its own ahead of her brain.

"Hey, Harry, We're glad you're back," she said, a slight treble of fear in her voice she hoped no one would notice. "Sirius told us you don't remember anything?"

Harry nodded, puzzled, wondering why Ginny suddenly was talking to him.

"Don't worry about it. Do you remember at the Chambers when I woke up and the last thing I remember before losing consciousness was – "

Ginny left her sentence hang in mid-air and Harry felt compelled to finish it for her.

"Riddle coming out of the diary?" Harry asked, frowning. Of all the things that Ginny could say, she would choose _that_. And in front of her family, too. He looked at her, she was smiling, but he could sense she was nervous. And then he noticed that she was gripping her wand tightly. Then he understood. He looked down, and smiled. _So. She's testing him. She doesn't believe that it's really me_. The other people in the room had readily accepted that he was Harry, and from what he could deduce, Dumbledore and Madam Pomfrey, as well. But not Ginny. He smiled at her then, his eyes crinkling,

"Thanks Ginny. I'm not worried. It's not that I've lost all my memories. In fact, I remember your mum's cooking very well. I miss it so much I could put my elbow in the butter dish."

Ginny gave him what was supposed to be a sweet smile, but her eyes promised revenge. The twat! Reminding her of one of the most humiliating events of her life.

Though Ginny was smiling hugely at him, Harry could sense that he had trodden on rather sensitive toes. And the way she stood, she looked as if she was readying for a fight. She didn't seem to be as shy as he remembered her to be.

The others though were all gaping at him, looking as if he had lost his marbles.

Harry then turned to Remus and asked a question. Asking about what was happening outside — if the killings, disappearances had started yet. His diversion worked, the mood shifted, the attention of the others drawn away from him and his bizarre comment.

Ginny never said more after that. She just seemed content to stay in the background. Once or twice Harry made a passing glance her way. His gaze never settled more than a second than he did with the others, but it was enough for him to note Ginny's reaction, there was a tiny flicker of her eyes, and maybe an annoyed set to her jaw – just a fraction. Harry wished she would speak once more, just to see how angry he had made her. Even when an hour later, Madam Pomfrey shooed all his visitors out, Ginny just gave him a small smile in farewell as she and the others left the room, some of them patting his legs.

Hermione was most reluctant to leave. She dallied for a while in the room, needlessly rearranging the sheets covering Harry's legs, ignoring the clucking sound Ron was making at her. Harry thought Hermione would have found another trivial reason to stay but finally, Madam Pomfrey ruthlessly shooed them all away, except for Sirius, who emitted a low growl deep in his throat when Madam Pomfrey tried to make him leave and so allowed him to stay.

~o~

A/N: (at the bottom so you have the option not to read. XD)

Tho thorry for the very late update :( this chapter was finished February of last year. But I felt it was more of the same, rather boring, that's why i held off updating. But if, after 4 rewrites, I can't still come up with a chapter I'm satisfied with, I probably never would. Also, I needed the hospital scene with D and Harry. And if I went along with the other versions, I would just be trading in a false, temporary conflict to one I need: Harry's growing mistrust and disaffection with D.

Thing is, I write by ear. it's when I second-guess what I've written that the words simply don't come. So now I'm planning to let whatever just comes out of my head be, to let the story write itself coz otherwise, it would take me 300 yrs ;) to finish this, rate I'm going.

Also, Merinelle was the presence Harry ignored. I want it to have happened but not in Harry's POV.

had to change the rating of this fanfic. But pls remember that war has costs, and the shit that happens in the real world will always be worse than anything I can possibly think of, placental shield included.


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